One day, Anna Du was walking along Castle Island's beach. She found there were lots of plastic pieces in the sea and some were too small to pick up. She began to think about how to solve the problem.
First, she did a survey. The result showed there were already 150 million tons of plastic in the sea, and every year there would be another 8 million tons. She realized something must be done. So she decided to invent a robot that could work under water. She tried again and again. At last her ROV came out. It could move through water and pick up plastic pieces, especially the tiny ones.
With this ROV, Anna Du took part in the Broadcom Masters competition which is one of the top STEM competitions. It's for young students around the world. This year, more than 5, 000 students were interested in the competition, but only a few got the chance. Anna Du's ROV caught a lot of attention. It had a camera with three different kinds of lights which could find plastic pieces easily. Dana Yoerger, an expert, said, "The ROV is nicely done for a 12-year-old girl. It's very clever."
In fact, Anna Du is always learning to solve the world problems and her parents are always supporting her. At the age of five, she began to go to workshops to learn engineering skills. When she was asked about the future plan, she said, "I want to be an engineer because I like building things. I think many world problems can be solved with new inventions. Right now, I'm just caring about plastic problems because there is still a long way to go. "
