This past week, Rambam participated in CIJE Innovation Day, an event that brings together over 1,000 high school students from dozens of schools across nine states, including New Jersey, New York, Florida, Texas, Maryland, and Washington. For Innov -ation Day, teams were tasked to develop an invention that could make a real impact and then present their projects at Innovation Day, which took place at the American Dream Mall.

Throughout the day, teams had five minutes to pitch their invention to a room filled with fellow students and judges. After presenting, judges asked questions to each team about their project and about the development process. At the end of the day there was an award ceremony in which Rambam ultimately won First Place for Best Pitch, with a project centered around a milk cap designed to detect whether milk is spoiled.

The team was led by sophomores David Rabinow and Effie Neuman who worked for months developing the cap. As part of the development process, David flew out to Chicago to meet with a professor from the University of Chicago and discuss different testing methods that could help determine whether milk had gone bad. The project was developed over several months through designing, coding, testing, and refining the cap.

The cap works by measuring changes in the milk’s electrochemical properties, specifically shifts in ionic conductivity caused by microbial activity. As milk spoils, bacteria metabolize components in the milk, producing acidic byproducts and other charged particles that alter the milk’s conductivity. The cap takes an initial baseline reading and then compares future readings to tested thresholds of ionic activity.

Once the readings pass certain levels, the cap can help determine whether or not the milk is spoiled. The team hopes to continue refining the project and eventually make an appearance at CIJE Tank. To check us out go to: https://biocap.davidrabinow.com/