At first glance, Aaron Howe’s award-winning science project is the stuff of sinister science fiction movies, but the Banff student sees value in people having a tattoo of a barcode, or in this case a square QR code, as a way for emergency services personnel to get valuable information quickly.
Just scan the QR code with a smartphone and bingo, there’s everything they would need to help someone during an emergency, including identification, blood type and allergies.
Judges at the 52nd Canada-Wide Science Fair (CWSF) held in Lethbridge, May 11-18 also valued Howe’s project, QR for the ER, awarding him a bronze medal in his category.
Howe initially won the Canadian Rockies Regional Fair with his project in March, before moving on to the CWSF, where the best 400 science projects from Canada competed for top honours.
“We created a website (that) would allow you to create an account and put in your information and put in your medical records, blood type, contacts, things that emergency responders would need, and once you created an account the website would generate a QR code that you print off, spray on or tattoo onto the skin,” Howe said.
He came to the idea of making data accessible for EMS after reading an article about researchers who had encoded Shakespeare’s sonnets onto a strand of synthetic DNA.
“It was a form of data storage and I thought, ‘this is pretty impressive because we are always going to have our cells and DNA,’ but it wasn’t very practical because it had to be analyzed through a microscope and decoded,” Howe said.
“So I was thinking what would be a more practical use and I remembered back to the movies, science fiction, when they just have the scanners on the wrist, barcodes, and I thought that would be something that would be a good idea.”
He tested the QR code and website with different devices and found he would get the necessary information from his database on average between five and 10 seconds.
BCHS language arts teacher Shari Worobey said Howe’s project is both unique and very applicable in society, which is what attracted the judges’ interest.
“It’s original and when he went to Canada-Wide, no one had done a project like that before. A lot of the judges had commented on his application to society and how important this product is,” Worobey said.
For now, Howe said he has no plans to continue with this project. He’s got his sights on a new project that he hopes to take to next year’s CWSF.
But he may have his work cut out for him, as the Canadian Rockies science fair is growing in interest with about 170 participants last year from schools in Banff and Canmore. That is up considerably from the 40 participants in the first fair held six years ago.
And out of five of those six years, Bow Valley students have won awards at the national level. Howe’s older sister, Chloe, who also won a bronze medal at an earlier competition.
Howe also moves up a category next year, competing against students in Grades 9 and 10.
Even so, Worobey doubts that will stop Howe from succeeding.
“He’s very well versed with technology and he’s already studying cellphone programming in order to start his next science fair project. He’s very driven, very focused and very intelligent and he has a love for technology,” she said.
If Howe does decide to take his QR for ER project further, something Worobey said he could patent, he said he would have to develop better security for the server to protect the information.
While Howe said he appreciated receiving the bronze medal for his project, he added he’s more appreciative of the learning opportunity the CWSF provided.
“It was very interesting, mostly the experience; the award was good, but mostly the learning I did at the Canada-Wide science fair, next year I can create a better project.”
