Jordan Prawira
Grade: 11
Mountain House, CA
Inducted: 2023
Pura Aer 2 (PA2) benefits society as a low-cost, energy-efficient, and portable air purifier system for emergency situations, low-income areas, and everyday use.
Inspired by my personal experiences with the California wildfires, nearly evacuating, and the COVID-19 pandemic, I have been developing solutions to the global air quality issue for the past 3 years. The San Joaquin Central Valley, where I live, is one of the most polluted areas in the US. Air pollution is an invisible killer, as over 4.2 million people globally die annually due to exposure to fine particulate matter, especially PM2.5. Additionally, outdoor air quality impacts indoor air quality, as pollutants can leak indoors, causing pollution concentrations 2-5x higher. With 90% of our time spent indoors, we are constantly exposed to dangerous air quality.
My design inspiration comes from oceanography, which I've studied in Science Olympiad, specifically Sponges of the phylum Porifera. Sponges have two interesting filtering mechanisms: their pores, which use hyperbolic geometry to induce flow; and their canal system, which uses a tortuous path to capture particles smaller than their pores.
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