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NameMax Du
HometownCalgary, Alberta
Age 14


Claim to fame: 
Max Du knows how to build a robot.
In fact, this spring, he won the Canada-wide Science Fair with his first submission.
Max won the platinum award in his age group (Grade 9 to 10) for “innovation” at the national competition on May 20.
His project, titled “A Novel Pre-Hospital Indoor Rescue Drone,” is a high-tech surveillance drone designed to rescue people suffering from cardiac arrest.
Here’s Max’s award-winning science fair project.  (Image submitted by Max Du/Youth Science Canada)
Max spent six months testing his prototype, which cost $2,500 to produce.  He did it with the support of his parents and #RisingYouth, an organization that helps fund community service projects created by young people.


How Max first got the idea 
Max got a burst of inspiration during Christmas last year.
“I got a toy drone from my parents, but I couldn’t fly it because Calgary is really snowy,” Max said in an interview with CBC Kids News.
“So I started messing around with it at home and it got me thinking about how a drone could be used as an indoor robot that could help people.”
Max started thinking about people with serious heart conditions who are at risk of having a fatal heart attack before the ambulance arrives.
According to the Heart and Stroke Foundation, approximately 35,000 people have cardiac arrests in Canada each year.  The organization says most of these occur outside the hospital.
In this short clip from Max’s science video, his prototype easily jumps up the stairs to help someone in a life-threatening cardiac arrest.  (Image submitted by Max Du/Youth Science Canada)
Of those who have an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, less than 10 percent survive.
Max believed a drone could deliver faster support and life-saving medicine, but he needed to build one himself to know for sure.


The challenges faced by Max 
The painstaking process of testing his prototype took about six months.  Max’s parents had to deal with their son constantly flying—and crashing—different models in the house.
Every time Max created an exciting innovation, like an extendable arm that could handle a needle, it would add weight to his drone, causing it to crash and break apart.
Then Max would have to buy all new parts and start over.
Max tested his prototype exhaustively, changing the balance point in the machine’s robotic coding and using lighter materials until his design was more balanced.
In this short clip from Max’s science project video, Max shows how the bulky design made his drone harder to lift, left, compared to how it flew after redesigning his prototype, shown right.  (Image submitted by Max Du/Youth Science Canada)
He also had to be resourceful and use what he had to keep costs down, borrowing his mom’s selfie stick to create an arm system, his dad’s camping air pump to test a design idea, and his dental floss kit of his sister to create a medicine box.
Through trial and error and talking to his mentors from the FIRST Tech Challenge (a robotics competition Max attended in 2021), the 14-year-old finally got it right.
His new drone can now grab a door handle, open it, hover in the air, and then gently land on the ground.
A new extendable arm can be released to deliver a shot or deliver a life-saving drug to the patient.
A built-in surveillance camera could directly confer with an emergency response team, whose members could monitor the patient remotely.
Max wanted to design an extendable arm for his drone that could also open doors to help people with serious heart conditions.  (Image submitted by Max Du/Youth Science Canada)
His science teacher encouraged him to apply to an Alberta-wide science fair.  When his project won a top prize, Max advanced to the Canada-wide Science Fair — and the rest is history.


Could Max’s drone be built for real patients? 
Max now plans to apply for a patent – an official document that shows you have legal ownership of your invention – so he can make connections in the healthcare industry to make it real.
“I just want to keep improving it,” he said.
He’s spent his summer so far learning about artificial intelligence at California’s Stanford University’s AI4ALL program as one of 32 kids selected worldwide.
He will head next door to the University of Pennsylvania to take a college-level robotics class before returning to high school in September.
He’s also studying to get his drone pilot’s license so he can finally put his Christmas gift to good use.
“After I get my license, I can get permits to fly to cool places like Banff,” Max said.
“Can’t wait to get some cool drone shots!”
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