By Katie Donnelly O’Neill
While most of his fellow graduating students have focused all their time and energy on obtaining the best marks for university, Corey Centen has found time to make a difference in the community.
Centen is not only interested in helping his neighbourhood but he has also designed a robotic device that can be used by people around the world to detect forest fires.
His efforts were nationally recognized by the Canadian Merit Scholarship Foundation with an award of $48,000.
The 18 year old is the first Immaculata High School student to win this award.
The scholarship is given annually to 30 graduating students who exhibit a combination of academic excellence and strong leadership in the community.
Centen says that he has been interested in robots for several years.
“I first started by taking things apart and looking inside,” he says.
His interest grew once he started high school and began designing projects to enter into competitions.
In 2001, Centen received third place at the National Science Fair for his robotic device that detects forest fires before they can get out of control.
“The data acquisition device is able to go through forest terrain and detect things like light density and temperatures,” he says.
The project took him a year and was done in addition to his normal school work.
“I really enjoyed doing the work, so I didn’t mind putting in the time,” he says.
Centen is also part of a committee that has launched an anti-smoking campaign.
The project, called Exposé, is a joint initiative by the City of Ottawa and Child and Youth Friendly Ottawa.
The campaign gives 21 schools $1,000 each to show teens the effects of smoking. This project gets students to find new ways of expressing the message through songs, sculptures and stories.
A unique approach is necessary, he says, to get teens involved.
“When kids keep hearing the same messages, they stop listening,” says Centen.
This fall, Centen says he hopes to study engineering at one of the 25 universities partnered with the scholarship foundation.
According to Jessica Tudos, communications and outreach co-ordinantor for the Canadian Merit Scholarship Foundation, the foundation was created in 1988 as a method of keeping talented students in Canada. “There were no awards in Canada being given out based on merit until we started,” she says.
Principal Tom D’Amico says teachers at Immaculata are quite proud of Centen’s achievements and feel he is a school leader.
“It is good when an all-around good guy is recognized and not just one that hits the books,” he says.
Centen is able to balance a wide variety of activities with his academics and is a guy who “almost always says ‘yes’ when asked to help,” D’Amico says.
Brian Burns, an industrial design professor at Carleton University, says it is unfair that students have been left to pursue their interests in robotic devices on their own time.
“The current education system has basically eliminated design and technology class and replaced it with computer studies,” says Burns.
He says as a result of this cutback there is going to be a massive shortage of highly skilled trades people in the workforce once the baby boomers retire.
“They have got rid of shop so now the students have no place to tinker and mess with things within the school environment,” says Burns.
For now, Centen is using the dining room table as his workshop area and is working on his next big project, which will be unveiled at the regional science fair at the end of March.