Lexington High Student Racks Up Awards for Building Robot

A Lexington High School student earned $26,000 in scholarships, a trip to Switzerland and numerous awards, thanks to a robot he built for his science fair project. 

Arjun Aggarwal built GNut-III, an interactive robot with vision, intelligence and speech capabilities. His creation earned him a Davidson Fellow award -- including a $25,000 scholarship -- from the Davidson Institute for Talent Development. 

After entering the robot in the school science fair, Aggarwal moved on to the University of South Carolina Central South Carolina Region II Science and Engineering Fair, where he won first place in the senior division for engineering and a $1,000 scholarship from USC.  

He also won an Outstanding Achievement award, the Naval Science Award for Distinguished Achievement and the Region II Presidential Award. 

After his first-place award, Aggarwal advanced to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Los Angeles in May, where where he competed with more than 1,600 finalists from around the world. 

The prize this time? Aggarwal received a fourth-place award in the electrical and mechanical engineering category and an all-expenses paid trip to the European Council for Nuclear Research in Geneva, Switzerland.

Aggarwal also won a silver medal and two certificates of achievement for his robot at the International Sustainable World Energy Engineering and Environment Project (I-SWEEEP) Science Fair in Houston. 

In addition, he won first place for a research paper he presented at the South Carolina Junior Academy of Science annual meeting in the spring.