Sune Gerber – SA’s youth recognized internationally
Sune was elected to represent South Africa at the International Sustainable Energy, Engineering and Environmental World Project Olympiad (I-Sweeep 2009) held in the American city of Houston, Texas recently. Nearly 1200 young scientists and project supervisors came to Houston for this remarkable event. Only national and gold medal winners from 60 countries were selected to compete at ISWEEEP. Sune’s journey to the US started last October, when she was awarded a gold medal in the Senior Engineering category of the National Eskom’s Expo for Young Scientists. Sune chose her project as she realised that the need for aeronautical and mechanical engineers’ to develop more fuel efficient and environmentally friendly airplanes will ultimately result in reinventing the propeller
and reviewing previous designs. She built a test rig with a balance mechanism and then tested various home-made propellers with a given input power from an electric motor from which thrust could be measured in a variable free stream flow (homemade wind tunnel).
Apart from winning a gold medal, she also received the prestigious Best Young Scientist Female award, the Aeronautical Society of South Africa Award and medallion, the Wits University Mechanical Engineering prize and was awarded a bursary to study in the fields of Engineering, IT or Finance at any South African institution of higher learning of her choice.
At the international Fair, Sune won a Gold Medal in the Senior Engineering Category for which she received US$ 1 000 in prize money. She was also awarded the American Crocker & Reynolds Construction, L.P special award for “Recycle, Reuse and Renew” for her motivation and approach that the aviation industry needs to take a look backwards at propeller driven aircraft as a way to save fuel, taking into account environmental and economical realities.
Sune returned on the 13th of August from Seattle in Washington State where she participated in a unique development program for teenage girls called Girls-on-Ice that combines leadership, mountaineering and science. Her trip was a milestone event for Africa as she was the first girl from the African Content to participate in this international development program for young women that is offered in partnership with the College of Natural Science and Mathematics at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the National Youth Development Trust (NYDT), from South Africa.
A team of 9 teenage girls and 3 instructors spend 11 days exploring and learning about mountain glaciers and the alpine landscape through scientific field studies with a professional glaciologists, mountaineer, and artist. The girls on the team learn not only about alpine geology, glaciology, and mountaineering, but they also challenge themselves and gain self-confidence in their physical, intellectual, and social abilities. The instructors encourage the girls to observe and think like scientists through making observations and inferences. The girls develop their own experiments to test ideas and answer questions.
First Ascent provided Sune with a range of clothing suited for the trip which ensured that she could focus at the task at hand rather than being concerned about being cold or wet.
Sune made a commitment that on her return to South Africa she’ll mentor a girl from a previously disadvantaged school or community from South Africa or Africa to ensure success of the next girl that will undertake the expedition in 2010.
With intrepid and questioning youth like Sune, SA’s future looks bright indeed!