URBANA — Uni ExploraVision students have received more good news.

At the start of this week, they found out that one of their teams, consisting of senior Isaac Chambers and juniors Tej Chajed, Daniel Cheng, and Danny Ge, had won first place in its region and will compete in the final round against five other region winners from across the United States.

Now they've learned that their three remaining teams have earned honorable mention in the prestigious competition, which asks students to project imagine a new technology based on current science.

According to biology teacher and ExploraVision coach David Stone, Uni competed in a region consisting of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Ohio, Wisconsin and all of Canada.

Earning honorable mention, given only to teams in the top 10 percent, were:

• Freshmen Kathy Qiu and Aishwarya Gautam for their project BMRIDD: Bone MRI and Density Device. They competed in the Grades 7-9 Division.

• Freshmen Dax Earl, Rohit Palekar, and Anna Rubakhina for their project C-SMART: Toothbrush for Earlier Dental Caries Detection (C-SMART stands for Caries-Sensing Monitoring Alerting Reporting Toothbrush). They also competed in the Grades 7-9 Division.

• Sophomores Eric Chen, Zack Korol-Gold, and former Uni student Youyang Gu, a sophomore at Henry M. Gunn High School in California, for their project NeCoRe Heart: Neuron-Controlled Replacement Heart. They competed in the Grades 10-12 Division.

The Uni team that won its region created a project called HEARTt: sHDL Enabled Atheroma Reverse Transport Technology, which uses synthesized proteins in the fight against heart disease.

The team members will spend the next six weeks preparing a Web site that will explain their proposal in greater detail, incorporating video and discussing both the negative and positive impacts of the proposed technology on society.

As regional champions they have won a Toshiba notebook computer for the school, and a gift for themselves and their supervising teacher, Stone. If they win the final round, each team member would receive a U.S. Savings Bond worth $10,000 at maturity. National winners will be announced in early May.

The competition, now in its 17th year, is sponsored by Toshiba and administered by the National Science Teachers Association.

Every year, ExploraVision attracts up to approximately 20,000 K-12 students, with about 12 to 20 Uni students participating. This year seven Uni groups took part, with four groups, totaling 12 students, completing their projects.

Uni ExploraVision Projects at a glance

HEARTt: sHDL Enabled Atheroma Reverse Transport Technology

Group members: Senior Isaac Chambers and juniors Tej Chajed, Daniel Cheng, and Danny Ge

Grade level: 10-12

Project details: Atherosclerosis is a disease that causes excess formation of plaque on the artery walls that builds up and eventually ruptures the walls to cause heart attacks or strokes. Many people suffer from this incurable disease, and few successful treatments are available. HEARTt is designed to treat atherosclerosis by using synthesized proteins to remove the plaque.

NeCoRe Heart: Neuron-Controlled Replacement Heart

Group members: Sophomores Eric Chen, Zack Korol-Gold, and former Uni student Youyang Gu, a sophomore at Henry M. Gunn High School in California

Grade level: 10-12

Project details: Aiming their project at giving heart transplant patients a better life, these sophomores decided to create a completely new artificial replacement heart. Their new replacement heart improves on previous artificial hearts by allowing the continuous flow of energy and does not require patients to take any medication or wear an external battery.

BMRIDD: Bone MRI and Density Device

Group members: Freshmen Kathy Qiu and Aishwarya Gautam

Grade level: 7-9

Project details: This group developed a technology that applies magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques to the dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scan. According to Qiu, "The purpose is to measure bone mineral density while also evaluating overall bone quality, which neither the DXA nor MRI can do alone." Qiu found the project to be enlightening: "I've learned a lot about how some technologies — DXA and MRI in particular — are used for health evaluation; I've gotten a better understanding of the scientific process; [and] I've become a better writer."

C-SMART: Toothbrush for Earlier Dental Caries Detection (C-SMART stands for Caries-Sensing Monitoring Alerting Reporting Toothbrush)

Group members: Freshmen Dax Earl, Rohit Palekar, and Anna Rubakhina

Grade level: 7-9

Project details: Ever wonder whether your teeth are decaying or getting a case of dental caries? These freshmen developed C-SMART, an improved version of the modern toothbrush that will be able to tell the users whether they have caries developing on their teeth. To detect the caries, C-SMART uses laser technology that collects reflected light from the caries that is sent to a microcomputer chip in the toothbrush handle.