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Transcription: [00:05:53]
{SPEAKER name="Elvera Erlick"}
At this point I began to theorize and I attempted to discover why the decomposition was reacting as it did. My theory still needs work but now I feel fairly well substantiated.

[00:06:03]
{SPEAKER name="Elvera Erlick"}
I definitely benefitted a great deal from my work because it involved the learning of new techniques and an original thought process.

[00:06:12]
{SPEAKER name="Elvera Erlick"}
I also regret my lack of knowledge, skill, and experience at this point, and am eagerly looking forward to the time when I can really delve into research.

[00:06:21]
{SPEAKER name="Dushan Mitrovich"}
This is Dushan Mitrovich, 18, of Newton High School in Newtonville, Massachusetts. The project I submitted to the Westinghouse Science Talent Search is the flying platform.

[00:06:31]
{SPEAKER name="Dushan Mitrovich"}
This is a vertical take-off and landing, or so-called VTOL, type of aircraft. The field of VTOL aircraft is still very new and from what I know of it I believe it holds great practical possibilities for the future.

[00:06:44]
{SPEAKER name="Dushan Mitrovich"}
I became interested in this field in 1955, when the Hiller company announced the successful flights of their man-carrying flying platform.

[00:06:53]
{SPEAKER name="Dushan Mitrovich"}
I decided to study the flight characteristics of such a platform by designing and building a flying model, with which I could experiment myself.

[00:07:01]
{SPEAKER name="Dushan Mitrovich"}
Basically, this model works on the same principle as that used on the Hiller platform. Working on my project I was faced many times with really hopeless looking problems.

[00:07:11]
{SPEAKER name="Dushan Mitrovich"}
Every flight of the platform, and it did fly, was a suspense. From each flight, I learned something, and all the time I had new problems to work on.

[00:07:20]
{SPEAKER name="Dushan Mitrovich"}
It is very gratifying, indeed, that my work on this project, has given me the opportunity to be chosen as one of the 40 winners of the Science Talent Search.

[00:07:28]
{SPEAKER name="Jane Shelby"}
This is Jane Shelby, 17, from Teaneck High School, Teaneck, New Jersey. For my project in the Science Talent Search, I calculated the orbit of the third stage rocket of Sputnik 1 from the observations of an amateur team that I organized.

[00:07:41]
{SPEAKER name="Jane Shelby"}
The team plotted the position and time of the satellite on two consecutive mornings. In order to do this, we had to get up at 4AM, which seems to be an inseparable part of Sputnik spotting.

[00:07:52]
{SPEAKER name="Jane Shelby"}
After changing the observations to the proper form, I plotted them on a globe and calculated the period of the orbit.

[00:07:58]
{SPEAKER name="Jane Shelby"}
From that, I was able to compute the average height and velocity of the satellite.

[00:08:03]