Village Gamer

Youth Science Canada (YSC) has announced the recipients of the Research In Motion (RIM) Platinum Awards – given to three of Canada’s best and brightest science students at the awards ceremony for the 2012 Canada-Wide Science Fair. Chosen for their innovative and groundbreaking science projects, the winners were selected from 400 top projects among their peers in three different age categories:

• Maya Burhanpurkar from Shanty Bay, Ontario – Junior (grade 7/8) category
• Laurent Joli-Coeur from Westmount, Québec – Intermediate (grade 9/10) category
• Eric LeGresley from Chilliwack, British Columbia –  Senior (grade 11/12/Cégep) category

Joli-Coeur’s project – entitled “La quête de l’ombre jovienne” – was selected as the overall Best Project at the Canada-Wide Science Fair. Using an instrument and experimental protocol he designed himself, Joli-Coeur sought to be the first person ever to prove the existence of a shadow caused by light from the planet Jupiter.

Each of the Platinum Award winners received a total cash prize of $6,500 and Joli-Coeur received a total cash prize of $16,500 for the overall Best Project. Each Platinum Award winner was chosen from a group of 10 Gold Medal winners, who each received a cash prize of $1,500 as well as a 64 GB BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet.

The Platinum Awards are part of RIM’s support for Youth Science Canada’s flagship program that recognizes and celebrates Canada’s emerging young science talent.

“RIM is proud to support the efforts of Canada’s best and brightest young scientists on their quest to make the next groundbreaking discovery,” said Morgan Elliott, Director, Government Relations at RIM, who delivered opening remarks at the awards ceremony.

The annual event brings together Canada’s top 500 science students and was attended by over 3,000 visitors from the local community, including one-third of all grade 5-9 students in Canada’s smallest province.