The regional final was held at Benoni High School.
Jeppe High School for Girls entered 13 projects compiled by grade10 physical science pupils.
Ismatou Balde, Tamlyn Harker and Sinead de Jager were all awarded gold medals. Ismatou built a solar bottle bulb out of a plastic bottle.
She experimented with bottles of different sizes and found that the bigger the bottle, the brighter the light.
She also found that her solar bulb was brighter than a regular bulb during the day.
When asked why she chose to look at a project involving solar energy, Ismatou said, “My main goal in life is to help society in any way possible. Many people in South Africa live in rural areas with no access to electricity to light their homes, especially in the shacks. This leads to cable theft and illegal cable connections. This highly dangerous installation has caused many deaths, as well as spread fires killing thousands of people.”
She hopes her bottle light bulb will be the solution to this problem.
“The solar bottle bulb is not only a simple, affordable and easy installation. It is also sustainable. Ismatou’s project won the award for being the best energy efficient project at the regional final.
Tamlyn made a flotation device out of empty cold drink bottles that could be used all over South Africa to teach people to swim at little or no cost.
Her long-term goal is to give people a cheaper option when learning to swim and to enable every child to be water safe while encouraging recycling.
Sinead’s goal was to find a cost effective way of purifying contaminated water in an effort to reduce the high death rate of children who drink dirty water. She found she could do this successfully by placing copper in contaminated water.
Silver medals were awarded to Carina da Costa and Mayra Salim. Bronze medals were awarded to Kiana Bachu, Rafeeah Bismilla, Bre’anne Holz, Ammaarah Akhalwaya, Lindile Buthelezi, Robyn Searle, Meghan Jarvis and Azminah Jhetam.
Jeppe High School for Girls staff and other pupils congratulated the winners.
