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Ever since I was a young girl, I was always fascinated...
我从小就非常好奇...
Oh! OK, I meant younger and more short.
哦！好吧，我是说更年轻，更矮的时候。
If that's possible to imagine. But ever since I was a young girl,
如果你可以想象到的话。从我还是个小姑娘的时候开始，
I was always fascinated with how the world worked exactly how it did.
我就对这个世界是如何运转感到非常好奇。
So this, very early on, led me to the fields of mathematics and chemistry.
这一点让我从很早开始，就对数学和化学很感兴趣。
I would keep going further and further, and as I kept going, I realized that all the fields of science are interconnected
我努力学习，而随着学习的深入，我意识到所有科学领域都是互相关联的。
And without one, the others have little or no value.
如果离开某一学科，其他的学科的价值就会大大下降，甚至毫无价值。
So, inspired by Marie Curie and my local science museum,
于是，受居里夫人和我老家的科学博物馆的启发，
I decided to start asking these questions myself and engage in my own independent research, whether it be out of my garage or my bedroom.
我决定开始在我家的车库里，或者我的卧室中思考这些问题，并进行独立研究。
I started reading journal papers, started doing science competitions,
我开始阅读期刊论文，参加科学竞赛，
started participating in science fairs, doing anything I could to get the knowledge that I so desperately wanted.
参加科学展会，用尽一切办法获取我渴望的知识。
So while I was studying anatomy for a competition, I came across the topic of something called chronic wounds.
有一次为了参加竞赛，我开始研究解剖学，我遇到了一个名词，叫长期性伤口。
And one thing that stood out to me was a statistic that said that
引起我注意的是一项数据统计，
the number of people in the United States with chronic wounds exceeds the number of people with breast cancer,
在美国有长期性伤口的人数比患乳腺癌、
colon cancer, lung cancer and leukemia, combined. Hold up. So what is a chronic wound?
结肠癌、肺癌和白血病的人加起来还多。先等一下。什么是长期性伤口呢？
And why haven't I heard about a 5K walk for chronic wounds, why haven't I even heard about a chronic wound in general?
我怎么从没听过为支持长期性伤口患者进行的5公里步行活动，甚至从没听过长期性伤口这回事？
So after I got past those preliminary questions,
在我搞清楚这些初级问题之后，
and one that I will clarify for you, a chronic wound is essentially when someone gets a normal wound,
我要说清楚一点，长期性伤口本质上就是普通的伤口，
except it fails to heal normally because the patient has some kind of preexisting condition, which in most cases is diabetes.
只是它无法正常愈合，因为病人在受伤之前就已经有其他病症会影响愈合，大部分情况是糖尿病。
So more staggering statistics were to be found as I kept going on in this research.
随着研究的不断深入，我找到了更多令人震惊的数据。
In the year 2010 alone, 50 billion dollars were spent worldwide to treat chronic wounds.
仅在2010年，全球范围内用于治疗长期性伤口的费用就高达500亿美元。
In addition, it's estimated that about two percent of the population will get a chronic wound at some point in their lifetime.
除此之外，据估计，有2%的人口会在一生中的某个时刻遭遇长期性伤口。
This was absurd. So as I started doing more research,
这真的有点难以置信。于是我开始更深入的研究，
I found that there was a correlation between the moisture level inside a wound dressing and the stage of healing that the chronic wound would be at.
我发现长期性伤口的出现与否，与伤口包扎物的潮湿程度和伤口治疗所处的阶段之间存在关联。
So I decided, why don't I design something to measure the moisture level within the wound
于是我就想，为什么不设计一件产品，可以测量伤口的湿度，
so this can help doctors and patients treat their wounds better.
就能让医生和病人更好地对伤口进行治疗。
And essentially, expedite the healing process. So that's exactly what I set out to do.
这样一来就能加快治疗进程。这就是我决定要做的事情。
Being a 14-year-old working out of her garage-turned-lab, I had a lot of constraints.
一个14岁女孩，在自己家的车库实验室工作，面临着许多限制。
Most being that I wasn't given a grant, I wasn't given a lot of money, and I wasn't given a lot of resources.
最主要的是我没有经费，没什么钱，也没有什么资源。
In addition, I had a lot of criteria, as well.
除此之外，我的设计还需要符合许多标准。
Since this product would be readily interacting with the body,
因为这个产品需要跟人体发生作用，
it had to be biocompatible, it also had to be low-cost, as I was designing it and paying for it myself.
因此它必须具备生物兼容性，而且成本要低，因为我是自己设计并自费生产。
It also had to be mass-manufacturable, because I wanted it to be made anywhere, for anyone.
而且它还需要能够量产，因为我想让它能在任何地方生产，人人都能使用。
Thus, I drafted up a schematic.
因此，我画了个示意图。
What you see on the left hand-side is the early schematics in my design,
左手边的图是我早期的设计，
showing both a bird's-eye view and also one stacking variant.
同时显示了鸟瞰图和堆叠变体。
A stacking variant means that the entire product is consisted of different individual parts that have to work in unison.
堆叠变体的意思是，整个产品由不同的独立部分组成需要协同发挥作用。
And what's shown there is one possible arrangement.
图上显示的是某种可行的方案。
So what exactly is this? So I had gone on to testing my sensors and as all scientists have stumbles along their work,
那这些到底是什么呢？我对我的传感器进行了实验，但凡科学家，总会遇到挫折，
I also had a couple of problems in my first generation of sensors.
我也不例外，第一代传感器出现了不少问题。
First of all, I couldn't figure out how to get a nanoparticle ink into a printcheck cartridge without spilling it all over my carpet.
首先，我想不出好办法把纳米墨水精确地注入打印墨盒里面，而不会撒得地毯上到处都是。
That was problem number one.
这是第一个问题。
Problem number two was, I couldn't exactly control the sensitivity of my sensors.
第二个问题，我没法控制传感器的灵敏度。
I couldn't scale them up or down, I couldn't really do anything of that sort.
无法将它调高或者调低，一点办法都没有。
So I wanted something to solve it.
我要想办法解决问题。
Problem one was easily solved by some scouting on eBay and Amazon for syringes that I could use.
第一个问题很容易，我搜了一下易趣网和亚马逊，找到了我可以用的注射器。
Problem two, however, required a lot more thought.
第二个问题就需要更多的思考来解决了。
So this is where this factors in.
下面就是我要谈的。
So what a space-filling curve does is it aims to take up all the area it can within one unit square.
所谓的空间填充曲线，其目标是占据一个平方单位内所有的空间。
And by writing a computer program, you can have different iterations of the different curve,
通过编写计算机程序，你可以得到以不同方式重复的不同曲线，
which increasingly get close to one unit square, but never quite reaches there.
它们会越来越接近填满一个平方单位，但永远也无法完全填满。
So now I could control the thickness, the size, I could do whatever I want with it, and I could predict my results.
于是我就可以控制它的厚度、尺寸，做我想做的一切，也可以对结果进行预测。
So I started constructing my sensors and testing them more rigorously,
于是我开始制造我的传感器并且更严格地测试，
using money that I had gotten from previous science fair awards.
实验花费来自我以前参加科学展会的奖金。
Lastly, I had to connect this data in order to be read.
最后，我需要建立输出，让数据可读。
So I interfaced it with a Bluetooth chip, which you can see here by the app screenshots on the right.
于是我用蓝牙芯片做了个交互界面，就是右边的应用截屏的样子。
And what this does is that anyone can monitor the progress of their wound,
它可以让我们监控自己伤口愈合的过程，
and it can be transmitted over a wireless connection to the doctor, the patient or whoever needs it.
也可以通过无线连接的方式传给医生、病人或者任何需要的人。
So in conclusion, my design was successful -- however, science never ends.
总结来说，我的设计是成功的，当然，科学永无止尽。
There's always something to be done, something to be refined.
总有事情可以做，总有地方可以改进。
So that's what I'm currently in the process of doing.
这就是我现在正在做的。
However, what I learned was what's more important than the actual thing I designed is an attitude that I had taken on while doing this.
然而，我真正学到的是比起我设计出来的东西，更重要的是我在这过程中所持的态度。
And that attitude was, even though I'm a 14-year-old working in her garage on something that she doesn't completely understand,
这个态度就是，尽管我是一个14岁的孩子，在自己家的车库中工作，做的也是自己不完全懂的事情，
I could still make a difference and contribute to the field.
但我还是能做出点成绩，对这个领域有所贡献。
And that's what inspired me to keep going,
这一点鼓励我继续前进，
and I hope it inspires many others to also do work like this even though they're not very sure about it.
我也希望能鼓励更多的人来做同样的事情，尽管他们对此还不太确定。
So I hope that's a message that you all take on today. Thank you.
这就是我今天想传递给大家的信息。谢谢大家。
