Teen Techies Engineer the Future

The world's brightest aspiring scientists gathered in Portland, Oregon, to compete for a piece of $3 million and the recognition that could help them to become the next Bill Gates or Jonas Salk.

The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair awards college scholarships to encourage high-school students to work in a field that experts say will soon face a critical shortage.

Students designed autonomous robots, studied the heavens and the seas, and harnessed solar power for their projects, which were judged by an international panel of scientists.  

More than 1,300 students from 40 countries competed in the 55th annual ISEF. The top three prize winners receive a $50,000 college scholarship and a free trip to Stockholm, Sweden, to attend the Nobel Prize ceremony. The ISEF is the culmination of 500 regional science fairs that involve more than 3 million students.

The judges selected Sarah Rose Langberg, of Fort Myers, Florida; Uwe Treske, of Grafenhainichen, Germany; and Yuanchen Zhu, of Shanghai, China, as the 2004 Intel Young or Teen  Scientists.