Teen wins national award for paper-making invention

He called it the "Rumpelstiltskin Project: Can Straw Make Paper?"'

The project made Sand, now 18 and a senior, the winner of the Lemelson-MIT High School Invention Apprenticeship. The award, based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, honors the nation's top young inventors.

Sand admits his idea is not novel. His research found that companies made paper from straw and flax in the 1930s and '40s. But few high school students pursued the idea the way he did.

He wondered if quality paper could be made from the corn, wheat, flax and straw. He even wondered about paper made from the cattails that crowd sloughs and farm field ponds.

"I'm not a huge environmentalist," Sand said. "But if this is a huge renewable resource that we aren't using to its fullest extent, I figured there is something worth looking at here."

The Lemelson program was founded by inventor Jerome Lemelson and his wife, Dorothy, to inspire a new generation of American scientists, inventors and entrepreneurs.

Sand receives no cash award or college scholarship. Instead he will choose from a series of three-week, summer mentorships with some of the nation's most inventive minds.

"We could easily cut a check like others do. But we wanted something different for the winners ... something hands on that they could take with them." Michael McNally, a program officer for the contest.

The judges found Sand to be resourceful and determined.

Bogged down with questions and stymied by the limited technology at home and school, Sand tracked down a wood and paper sciences professor at the University of Minnesota. Their Internet dialogue ultimately led to a three-day visit by Sand to turn pulp from straw, cattails and corn into paper.

The end result: paper-thin, tortilla-sized discs that look, feel and test like their wood-pulp cousin.