Detailed information on what I have done…
The Wireless Charger.
Just this year, when I was working on my prototype wireless charger aimed at being much more efficient than those commercially available, I made a breakthrough in my experiment. After three years of research and trial, I managed to get the efficiency up from the industry standard 87.7% to 97.7% with a simple addition: I built a low-power oscillating electromagnet, and connected it to the power supply of the charger, placing it at a carefully calculated location to optimize the magnetic field formed from the coupling of coils. I’m currently working on improving the range with a similar concept, but as it is, I managed to get results far better than any of my expectations. I think that this is my greatest achievement, because I grew academically in the process, got results better than commercially available alternatives, and did all this without any personal outside assistance. In truth, I see this achievement as a benchmark for everything else that I research and attempt to create.
The Elevator Pitch.
In ninth grade, a club in our school organized an event where some of the top officials from TEB Bank and EndeavorTurkey Investment would visit our school, and participants would have a chance to do an “elevator pitch,” i.e. a one-minute speech to convince them of providing funding to an idea we had. I pitched my idea of long-range efficient wireless charging, with a simple but unique addition to the conventional design. One week later, I found out that I was one of the three people selected. Consequently, I had the chance to personally meet the CEO of TEB Bank, and was awarded a one-week internship at the TEB Entrepreneurship House. The whole process was a fascinating experience, helping me to discover my passion for research and development in my areas of interest.
The Koç Internship.
When I was working as a research assistant at Koc University, I was told to solve the parking problem that had become an unwanted part of the university experience. I started by discovering the cause of the issue: people didn’t know where the available places were. Therefore, with the limited instructions I was given, I got to work on my solution. I started by 3D designing small, bird-house shaped sensor housings that were cheap to be manufactured and easy to install. I then created the circuit necessary to activate the infrared distance sensors that would determine if a parking place was full or empty, programming the circuit accordingly. I then built a prototype for the concept, with the help of a 3D printer. I was happy to see it work. I then presented the product to the professor that was leading the project.
The Music Competition.
In May of last year, I was selected to be a member of a jury of three people, for an Istanbul-based international music competition. UGY, or Uluslararası Genç Yetenekler Yarışması, is a non-profit music competition aimed at young musicians from all backgrounds, and has over 5000 applicants a year, worldwide. I was honored to be on the jury of such an important competition. For any more information, the UGY website can be visited. Also, a related media publication mentioning me in the jury.
The Summer at SIP.
I was selected to participate in the Science Internship Program (SIP), as one of only 16 international students admitted to the program. My research internship was on the topic “Evolved Stars with Weak Paschen Series Absorption and Small Proper Motions in the HALO7D Survey” with our mentors being Prof. Dr. Puragra GuhaThakurta, chair of Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics at UCSC, and Kevin McKinnon, third-year PhD student at UCSC. We were a team of three people, my two other peers being from California. In a 10-week online project, we thoroughly analyzed more than 75 different stars, focusing on 7 distant Milky Way Halo stars to determine their stellar composition and spectral properties. We developed a method to classify stars based on their Paschen-series Hydrogen absorption levels. We gained information about the age, mass, temperature, and intrinsic brightness of the seven focus stars in our dataset.
After seeing our extensive work and the deep knowledge we gained throughout the program, Dr. GuhaThakurta asked our group to keep working on the project after the program officially ended. At the time of writing this document, our team has gathered convincing evidence that three of our seven focus stars are variable (Type RR Lyrae or Type Delta Scuti), and that one of them might be part of a binary system. Currently, our immediate goals include calculating the distance from Earth for all of these stars, and analyzing their spectrum for specific types of variability. Our team will eventually submit an abstract to the American Astronomical Society (AAS), and look into writing a scientific paper combining our results.