Check Out This Guy

Eleven-year-old Peyton Robertson of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, just won the grand prize at the Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge by inventing a new kind of saltwater sandbag:

"Living in Florida, I'm keenly aware of hurricanes and saltwater flooding," [Robertson] told NBC News.

"Super-storm Sandy really got me concerned about how people can prepare for that damage from flooding. But today, the most common method of flood protection is sandbags. They are really heavy and difficult to transport and leave gaps in between the bags. So, I redesigned the bag," he explained.

Instead of sand, his bag is filled with a mixture of salt and an expandable polymer. When dry, it is lightweight, easy to move and easy to store. Once the bag is positioned, such as to create a barrier around a house, users hose it down with water. The polymer absorbs the water, swells and fills the volume of the bag.

"I use salt so they are heavier than any approaching seawater … but the twist is when you add salt to the bag it reduces the swelling of the polymer so you need to recalculate how much you put in," Robertson explained.

...The bags also have a novel interlocking mechanism that connects them at their midpoints in order to prevent gaps that floodwaters can penetrate.

Robertson tested the bags in the bathtub and a kiddie pool where they easily outperformed traditional sand-filled sandbags. He next hopes to test them "in a real hurricane situation because that is the only way to figure out what glitches or whatever might be in the solution."

Kids today. Get ON my lawn!