Adam E. Cohen
New York, NY
Age 17
Adam has been a "gadgeteer" since he was five years old, creating gadgets and electronic devices from scavenged parts. When Adam was fifteen, he visited Princeton University where he witnessed a demonstration of a scanning tunneling electron microscope. He promptly went home and built one out of LEGO® parts. Adam then fashioned his electron microscope into the Electrochemical Paintbrush. This amazing device "paints" tiny lines of copper so small that it can print fifty words end-to-end in a space the width of a human hair. This is sixteen times smaller than present devices used to fabricate microchips.
The Electrochemical Paintbrush was awarded 1st place honors at the 1997 Westinghouse Science & Talent Search, and 2nd place at the International Science and Engineering Fair. While his invention is being patented, Adam is studying Physics and Chemistry at Harvard University.