URBANA — Imagine what it would be like to have a toothbrush that could detect your dental caries. No more toothaches and nasty teeth to worry about!

During the past few months, several small groups of Uni students worked diligently on projects like that in an attempt to develop technologies for the future.

By late January four of these groups had finished and submitted their projects to ExploraVision, a national contest that asks participants to "create and explore a future technology by developing new ways to apply current science."

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

One of the Uni groups, consisting of freshmen Dax Earl, Rohit Palekar, and Anna Rubakhina, called their project C-SMART (Caries-Sensing Monitoring Alerting Reporting Toothbrush). Their idea was to develop an improved version of the modern toothbrush that will be able to tell users whether they have caries developing on their teeth by using laser technology. (For a description of all four projects, see the list below.)

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.

"The biggest benefit I've gotten from ExploraVision is fun," said freshman Anna Rubakhina. "When you get together as a group and start brainstorming, you get a lot of fun ideas. Such brainstorming also showed me how many opportunities there are in this world, how much the world can evolve."

In order to enter the competition, students have to meet several requirements. They must form a team consisting of two to four people and write an abstract about their project. They must also prepare a detailed description, ranging from an overview of the present form of their technology to a vision of that technology in 20 years. In addition, they must include a bibliography and five graphics that simulate Web pages describing and promoting their technology.

Students can begin discussing their project ideas whenever they want, but they must submit their projects before the deadline, which this year was Jan. 28.

Biology teacher David Stone, who has coached ExploraVision teams since the mid-1990s, manages the competition at Uni. According to Stone, Uni has put together one of the best records of any high school in the contest, with teams placing first in 1996 and 1997 and second in 1998.

On March 2, 24 regional winners will be announced, six for each of the four grade levels (10-12, 7-9, 4-6, K-3). If any of the Uni groups are named regional winners, a Toshiba notebook computer will be awarded to the school and the group members will each receive special gifts.

In addition, the regional winners will advance to the national level, where they will use their Web graphics to create an official site for their project. Then on May 4, first-place and second-place national winners will be announced in each of the four grade levels. First-place team members will each receive a U.S. EE Savings Bond worth $10,000, while second-place winners will receive a savings bond worth $5,000.

Although it has been awhile since a Uni team has been announced as a winner, Stone says winning isn't the important thing about this competition.

"For the kids I think they're looking more at doing the best job they can, obviously which I support and which I work with them on," said Stone. "But I am not focused on winning; winning is not really what determines success. I think it's more meaningful to work through the process, develop a collective vision, and then collaborate on it."

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.