How many of us will ever meet and converse with Nobel Prize winners, have a lovely discussion with computer scientist Vint Cerf in person, meet directors of corporate giants such as Google, or even better, be one of the finalists in the Google Science Fair?
Melvin Zammit has ticked all these experiences off his bucket list.
As I wait for him outside the university canteen, I look at students chatting and reading in the evening chill. Then an 18-year-old boy walks shyly towards me.
It’s Melvin, a quiet university student who has just started his first year reading for a degree in engineering. He is so unassuming that he doesn’t give any clues that he is a truly beautiful mind by day and an inventor by night.
For those who aren’t familiar with Melvin’s brilliant work, when still in secondary school, Melvin had an epiphany as he observed a salt crystal lattice during his chemistry lesson. He was inspired and decided to give it a shot in the NSTF contest for young scientists. The result? First place.
Melvin laughs as he tells me about how many times he was stopped at airports for carrying a suspicious box
Next, he participated in the European contest for young scientists in Helsinki, Finland. There, Melvin was given a special award for his research, which gave him the opportunity to participate as a finalist in the Intel ISEF 2012.
When he arrived back home from Pittsburgh, he found good news waiting for him – he had made it as a finalist along with 15 others from all around the world in the Google Science Fair.
So what is Melvin’s brilliant invention and how does it work? In a nutshell, it’s a 3D display that works by using the principle of persistence of vision. If an array of LEDs are spun in a circle and switched on and off accordingly, an image forms by illusion. This image leaves a virtually transparent background. Layers of the same LED array can be added one after the other to create a 3D canvas on which 3D objects can be drawn.
I ask Melvin what the experience was like and how has it changed him. His eyes light up as he tells me about all the like-minded people he met, how many interesting discussions he had with some of the best scientists in the world, the opportunities he was offered by companies like Microsoft and, above all, meeting one of the founders of the internet – Vint Cerf.
It has changed the way he thinks in terms of appreciating teamwork better and seeing things from a global perspective and not just limiting himself locally.
Melvin laughs as he tells me about how many times he was stopped at airports for carrying a suspicious box, that is, his invention, and taken to the examination room until customs officers would understand he was not carrying anything threatening.
As for the million-dollar question, is there any other invention in the pipeline? He grins and tells me he’s working on another 3D screen but he cannot give me any more information at this stage. He does tell me, however, about a new hobby which he has developed over the past three months – creating apps for Android. In total he has developed 11 apps to date. It takes him approximately three weeks to create one app. His most popular app is Fake Text Message, a prank app that lets you receive a text message from anyone you want – this has already been downloaded 4,000 times. You can download it, as well as Melvin’s other apps, by accessing Google Play and searching for NeuronDigital.
Where does he see himself in the future? This young man has already achieved more than some of us ever will and yet he keeps his feet firmly on the ground. He does not run ahead of himself and only lets his passion for science and discovery be his driving force. He is now interested in the fields of artificial intelligence and gravity. Who knows, maybe in a few years or so, we’ll see him flying off with another suspicious box that might change the course of humanity.
Christina Goggi is a web marketing content specialist and a regular blogger on various technology websites.