JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Viktoriia Galushchak, a student at St. Paul’s Riverside, recently won 1st place in Computer Science at the North Florida Regional Science and Engineering Fair.
The story behind her science project is unforgettable.
The 12-year-old’s life was uprooted suddenly last year when she, her 4-year-old brother and her mother fled Ukraine together after Russia invaded their country.
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They rushed to the border of Romania after Russia took control of the Chornobyl power plant. Viktoriia’s father was military age, so they had to leave him behind.
“It was a hard decision, but I realized how dangerous the situation was so I had no choice,” Viktoriia’s mother, Olga Galushchak, said.
The family spent eight hours in line waiting to cross into Romania. Once across the border, their car broke down alongside a highway in the middle of the night.
Olga said they flagged down a passing driver, but the man and his passenger could not understand them.
“They were deaf/mute,” Viktoriia said. “It was complicated for us to communicate, but still they helped us get to a hostel for refugees.”
That chance encounter left a lasting impression on the seventh grader.
Viktoriia and her family came to Jacksonville, where a family friend helped them find shelter. Her father was able to join them eight months later after receiving a medical waiver.
St. Paul’s Riverside allowed Viktoriia to enroll in the middle of the school year, and science teacher Kelsey Rapps encouraged the middle schooler to enter the science fair.
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That’s when Viktoriia came up with the idea -- motivated by her encounter while fleeing Ukraine -- to create a computer program that converts sign language into letters.
“I was inspired by that situation because I understand that there are a lot of deaf, mute people in the world and sometimes it’s complicated to communicate with them, especially with people who do not speak sign language,” explained Viktoriia.
The 12-year-old’s science project allows someone who is deaf/mute to sign into any device with a camera. The program then translates the sign language into letters.
Viktoriia’s creation impressed the judges at the North Florida Regional Science and Engineering Fair so much that she won 1st place in the Computer Science category. She also received the President’s Award, the Lemelson Early Inventor Prize and an invitation to this year’s Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge. In addition, she advances to the state science fair in April for her regional placement.
She said she is excited her project could help others after strangers helped her and her family during the chaos of fleeing her war-torn country.