2021.02.09
Japan Science & Engineering Challenge ("JSEC") aims to raise standards in science and engineering in Japan and to support the young motivated people who try to discover issues, find solutions, and deploy them further. EBARA CORPORATION ("EBARA") supports the concept and is in partnership with 2020 Japan Science & Engineering Challenge ("JSEC2020").
Ms. Nozomi Yuhashi of Hamamatsu Municipal Senior High School, Hamamatsu City, Shizuoka Pref., was selected as the winner of EBARA CORPORATION Award at JSEC2020.
Ms. Nozomi Yuhashi
JSEC is a free-study competition in the field of science engineering and mathematics, which started in 2003 sponsored by The Asahi Shimbun. JSEC aims to improve the level of science and engineering competences in Japan by promoting math and science education.
EBARA advocates implementation of highly enhanced ESG management in its long-term vision, E-Vision 2030. In 2018, EBARA established the EBARA CORPORATION Award at JSEC as a part of its social contribution activities to foster global talent for the next generation. The company has been supporting JSEC since then.
JSEC2020 final review was held on-line on December 12th and 13th, 2020.
In the year of 2020, 286 research studies were submitted from across the country, and 32 research studies proceeded to the final review. EBARA held an internal review in the middle of November and selected five studies as candidates for the EBARA CORPORATION Award. At the final review, applicants presented their research and answered questions from the judges.Then, the following research was selected as the EBARA CORPORATION Award winner.
Winner:
Ms. Nozomi Yuhashi
Sophomore, Hamamatsu Municipal Senior High School
Theme:
Prediction Model of Animals’ Running Speed based on Body Frame and Skeleton using Machine Learning - Why can't a giraffe run faster than a cheetah?
Ms. Yuhashi's love for animals led to this research. Her curiosity to wonder what determines the speed of running animals, the scientific spirit to pursue the cause, the flexible thinking process to come up with the use of machine learning, the challenging spirit to learn it from scratch, the enthusiasm to carefully pick up data for many different types of animals... all of these linked together incubated this study. Then, by considering the relationship between skeleton frames and running speeds to derive appropriate synthetic variables, Ms. Yuhasi successfully identified the correlation between the two factors. Furthermore, she demonstrates deep insights into the study with the idea of applying this result to sabretooth-tigers, which ceased to exist in ancient times.
Ms. Yuhashi's approach is common with our founding spirit of Passion and Dedication, and together with the excellent result of the research, we determined that Ms. Yuhasi deserves the EBARA CORPORATION Award.
EBARA CORPORATION will continue to contribute to the development of talent for the next generation through social contribution activities in the field of science and engineering.