It was just an ordinary Saturday. My dad was outside mowing the lawn, my mom was upstairs folding laundry, my sister was in her room doing homework and I was in the basement playing video games. And as I came upstairs to get something to drink, I looked out the window and realized that there was something that I was supposed to be doing, and this is what I saw.
那是一个平常的周六。 爸爸在修建草坪, 妈妈在整理衣服, 我的妹妹在屋里做作业, 我在地下室玩电脑游戏。 当我从地下室上来找水喝的时候, 我向窗外望去, 然后意识到我原本应该做的事情, 然后这是我看到的。
No, this wasn't my family's dinner on fire. This was my science project. Flames were pouring out, smoke was in the air and it looked like our wooden deck was about to catch fire. I immediately started yelling. My mom was freaking out, my dad ran around to put out the fire and of course my sister started recording a Snapchat video.
这不是我家的晚饭着火了。 这是我的科学项目。 火焰喷了出来, 空气中都是烟 我们的木质餐桌也就快被点着了。 我马上叫了起来。 我妈妈吓坏了, 我爸爸跑过来灭火 我的妹妹?当然是拿起手机 开始录Snapchat视频。
(Laughter)
(笑声)
This was just the beginning of my team's science project. My team is composed of me and three other students who are here in the audience today. We competed in FIRST LEGO League which is an international LEGO robotics competition for kids, and in addition to a robotics game, we also worked on a separate science project, and this was the project that we were working on.
这只是我的团队的科学项目的开始。 我的团队由包括我在内的四个人组成 他们都来了,坐在现场观众席。 我们参与了 FIRST LEGO 挑战赛, 这是面向孩子的国际乐高机器人竞赛, 在参与机器人比赛之外, 我们也做过一个独立的科学项目, 这就是我们当时做的项目。
So the idea for this project all started when a few months earlier, a couple of my teammates took a trip to Central America and saw beaches littered with Styrofoam, or expanded polystyrene foam. And when they came back and told us about it, we really started thinking about the ways in which we see Styrofoam every day. Get a new flat-screen TV? You end up with a block of Styrofoam bigger than the TV itself. Drink a cup of coffee? Well, those Styrofoam coffee cups are sure going to add up. And where do all these items go after their one-time use? Since there aren't any good existing solutions for used Styrofoam, almost all of them end up right in the landfill, or the oceans and beaches, taking over 500 years to degrade. And in fact, every year, the US alone produces over two billion pounds of Styrofoam, filling up a staggering 25 percent of landfills.
这个项目最初的想法, 是几个月之前, 我的几个同学去中美洲玩, 看到海滩上大量的塑料泡沫垃圾, 或者叫发泡聚苯乙烯。 当他们回来告诉我们之后, 我们真的都开始重新审视 每天使用的塑料泡沫。 买了一台超薄电视? 包装电视的塑料泡沫可能 比电视机还要大。 喝一杯咖啡? 塑料泡沫咖啡杯毫无疑问 会积少成多。 那么这些一次性塑料泡沫 用完之后去哪里? 由于没有回收利用塑料泡沫的方案, 几乎所有的塑料泡沫 都进了垃圾场, 或者丢进海洋或沙滩, 需要500年时间才能降解。 事实上,仅美国每年 就有20亿磅塑料泡沫, 惊人的占据了垃圾场的25%。
So why do we have these ghost accumulations of Styrofoam waste? Why can't we just recycle them like many plastics? Well, simply put, recycled polystyrene is too expensive and potentially contaminated, so there is very little market demand for Styrofoam that has to be recycled. And as a result, Styrofoam is considered a nonrenewable material, because it is neither feasible nor viable to recycle polystyrene. And in fact, many cities across the US have even passed ordinances that simply ban the production of many products containing polystyrene, which includes disposable utensils, packing peanuts, takeout containers and even plastic beach toys, all products that are very useful in today's society. And now France has become the first country to completely ban all plastic utensils, cups and plates.
为什么这些塑料泡沫会幽灵般的 累积起来? 为什么我们不能回收利用, 就像其它塑料一样? 嗯,简单来说,回收塑料泡沫 成本太高了 而且有潜在的污染风险, 所以塑料泡沫的回收利用 并没有什么市场。 结果就是塑料泡沫被认为是 不可回收的原材料, 因为循环利用聚苯乙烯 既不经济也不可行。 事实上,美国的很多城市 都通过了法案 干脆在很多产品中禁止使用聚苯乙烯, 包括一次性餐盒器皿, 食品包装袋,外卖盒子, 甚至塑料沙滩玩具, 这些都是现代社会 非常实用的产品。 现在法国成为第一个 完全禁止塑料容器、杯子、 和盘子的国家。
But what if we could keep using Styrofoam and keep benefiting from its cheap, lightweight, insulating and excellent packing ability, while not having to suffer from the repercussions of having to dispose of it? What if we could turn it into something else that's actually useful? What if we could make the impossible possible?
但是如果我们能够继续 使用塑料泡沫, 能够继续享受它的优点: 廉价、轻便、隔热 以及出色的包装能力, 同时又不需要承担 丢弃它带来的后果? 我们是否能够将塑料泡沫转化成 别的可以用的东西? 万一我们真的让不可能 变成可能了呢?
My team hypothesized that we could use the carbon that's already in Styrofoam to create activated carbon, which is used in almost every water filter today. And activated carbon works by using very small micropores to filter out contaminants from water or even air.
我的团队假设我们可以利用 塑料泡沫中的碳原子 来制作活性炭, 现在几乎所有的水过滤器 都要用到活性炭。 活性炭的工作原理是利用 自身非常小的孔状结构 来过滤水和空气中的污染物。
So we started out by doing a variety of heating tests, and unfortunately, we had many failures. Literally, nothing worked. Besides my dad's grill catching on fire, most of our samples vaporized into nothing, or exploded inside expensive furnaces, leaving a horribly sticky mess. In fact, we were so saddened by our failures that we almost gave up.
于是我们一开始尝试了 很多种加热的方法。 不幸的是,我们都失败了。 什么方法都不管用。 要么是像我爸爸的烧烤架 那样烧起来, 要么是直接挥发消失了, 要么是在很贵的烤箱里爆炸了, 留下刺鼻的糊味。 事实上面对这些失败我们非常沮丧, 一度想要放弃了。
So why did we keep trying when all the adults said it was impossible? Well, maybe it's because we're kids. We don't know any better. But the truth is, we kept trying because we thought it was still possible. We knew that if we were successful, we would be helping the environment and making the world a better place. So we kept trying and failing and trying and failing. We were so ready to give up.
那么为什么我们 在大人们说不可能的时候 还要继续尝试? 可能正因为我们是小孩子吧。 我们只知道这么尝试。 但是真相是,我们之所以没有放弃 是因为我们相信能做到。 我们相信如果我们做到了, 我们可以改善环境,让世界 变得更好一点。 所以我们继续尝试 继续失败 继续尝试 继续失败。 我们几乎要放弃了。
But then it happened. With the right temperatures, times and chemicals, we finally got that successful test result showing us that we had created activated carbon from Styrofoam waste. And at that moment, the thing that had been impossible all of a sudden wasn't. It showed us that although we had many failures at the beginning, we were able to persevere through them to get the test results that we wanted. And moreover, not only were we able to create activated carbon for purifying water, but we were also able to reduce Styrofoam waste, solving two global problems with just one solution.
突然,实验成功了。 合适的温度、时间和化学成分, 让我们终于获得了成功的实验结果 表明我们成功的用塑料泡沫 制造了活性炭。 那一刻,曾经不可能的事情 突然可能了。 这让我们看到虽然我们一开始 经历了这么多失败, 我们通过坚持不懈最终能够 得到了预期的结果。 更重要的是,我们不仅是能够 制造活性炭 用来净化水源, 我们可以用这种方法来 减少塑料泡沫污染。 一个方法同时解决了 两大世界难题。
So from then on, we were inspired to take our project further, performing more tests to make it more effective and testing it in real world situations. We then proceeded to receive funding from the NSTA's eCYBERMISSION STEM-in-Action program sponsored by the US Army, as well as FIRST Global Innovation Awards sponsored by XPRIZE. And we were also honored with the Scientific American Innovator Award from Google Science Fair. And using these funds, we plan to file a full patent on our process and to continue to work on our project.
从那时开始,我们更加鼓舞, 继续推进这个项目, 不断改进实验使其 更加高效 并且在多种真实环境中进行测试。 后来我们拿到了资金支持 获得了来自美国陆军 NSTA 的 “e电子使命 STEM行动” 基金的支持。 同时我们也获得了由XPRIZE赞助的 FIRST全球创新大奖。 同时我们在谷歌科学市集中 被授予了科学美国人 创新大奖。 拿到这些投资之后,我们计划 就我们的方法提交一份专利 并继续推进我们的项目。
So yes, although we started with catching my dad's grill on fire and failing so many times that we almost quit, it was well worth it when we look back at it now. We took a problem that many people said was impossible and we made it possible, and we persevered when it looked like nothing that we did would work. We learned that you can't have success without a little, or a lot, of failure.
所以,是的,虽然我们开始的时候 烧了我爸爸的烧烤架 并且失败了那么多次以至于 我们都快要放弃了 回过头看我们觉得这一切 都是值得的。 我们选了一个很多人都觉得 不可能解决的问题 使之成为可能, 并且在我们所有的努力都失败的时候 没有半途而废。 我们明白了如果想要成功 没有一点,或者很多失败 是不可能的。
So in the future, don't be afraid if your grill goes up in flames, because you never know when your idea might just catch fire.
所以在未来,不要害怕你的 烧烤架着火了, 因为你永远不知道你的灵感 何时擦出火花。
Thank you.
谢谢。
(Applause)
(掌声)