The award
The Society for Science lists the 2018 Gordon E. Moore Award, worth $75,000, to Oliver Nicholls, 19, of Sydney, Australia, for an autonomous window cleaning robot for commercial high rise buildings. The award goes to one project judged best across the entire fair.
The listing gives the project title and nothing more — no abstract, no design description and no test results — so the account on this page stays within what the title states.
The problem the title names
Cleaning the outside of a tall building is done by people suspended on cradles and ropes, and it is among the more hazardous routine jobs in any city. The work is also slow and weather-dependent, and a single tower can take weeks.
An autonomous robot for the task has to hold position against wind on a moving facade, navigate around mullions, ledges and setbacks, and carry water and power. The source does not say how Nicholls approached any of that, and this page does not guess.
The 2018 fair
Intel ISEF 2018 ran from 13 to 18 May at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh, with nearly 1,800 young scientists selected from 420 affiliated fairs across more than 78 countries, regions and territories.
Approximately 600 finalists received awards. Twenty-two Best of Category winners took $5,000 each, plus $1,000 grants to their schools and affiliated fairs. The Moore Award sits at the top of that structure as the single largest prize.
The other 2018 winners
Two Intel Foundation Young Scientist Awards of $50,000 were given. One went to Meghana Bollimpalli, 17, of Little Rock, Arkansas, for the green synthesis of phosphorus and nitrogen co-doped carbon materials from renewable resources for supercapacitors, produced with a microwave-assisted technique.
The other went to Dhruvik Parikh, 18, of Bothell, Washington, for a sol-gel derived composite membrane for the vanadium redox flow battery. Robotics and two energy-storage projects made up the 2018 podium.
What is documented — and what is not
The listing gives his name, age, home city, the award, its value and the project title. It names no school, no mentor and no engineering partner, and reports no prototype testing.
It also stops at the fair. No source used here reports his later studies or work, whether the robot was developed, patented or commercialised. His birth year is inferred from being 19 in May 2018 and is approximate.
An Australian win
Intel ISEF draws from more than 78 countries, but its top prize has gone most often to students from the United States, which sends by far the largest delegation through its affiliated-fair network.
Nicholls's 2018 win is one of the exceptions: an Australian student qualifying through his own national pipeline and then beating a field of nearly 1,800 in Pittsburgh. That is the documented shape of the achievement, independent of what the robot could or could not do.
| Person | Country | Milestone | Age / Stat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rishi Shiv Prasanna | India | Winning the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar in 2023 at eight, for… | Age 0 |
| Cannan Huey-You | United States | Presenting research on a Milky Way gas cloud at the American Astronomical… | Age 11 |
| Ángela Olazarán Laureano | Mexico | An AI medical assistant built in Veracruz, designed to work where there is | Age 14 |
| Émer Hickey | Ireland | Co-winning the 2014 Google Science Fair grand prize | Age 16 |
| Oliver Nicholls | Australia | Gordon E. Moore Award, top prize at Intel ISEF 2018 | Age 19 |
What is documented — and what is not
✓ Documented
- Won the $75,000 Gordon E. Moore Award at Intel ISEF 2018 at 19 (Society for Science)
- Project title: 'Autonomous Window Cleaning Robot for Commercial High Rise Buildings'
- From Sydney, Australia
? Unverified, disputed or wrong
- No abstract, design detail or test data published in the source
- No school, mentor or partner named
- No information on development, patents or his career after 2018
Questions people ask about Oliver Nicholls
How old was Oliver Nicholls when he won?
Nineteen, in May 2018. No date of birth appears in the source used here.
What did he build?
An autonomous window cleaning robot for commercial high-rise buildings, according to the published project title.
How much did he win?
$75,000, the Gordon E. Moore Award, the top prize at Intel ISEF 2018.
How does the robot work?
The source publishes only the project title. No design detail, prototype testing or performance data is documented here.
Where is Oliver Nicholls now?
No source used here reports on his studies or work after 2018.
Is Oliver Nicholls on Wikipedia?
No Wikipedia article on him was confirmed for this entry.
Who else won top awards in 2018?
Meghana Bollimpalli of Arkansas, for supercapacitor carbon materials, and Dhruvik Parikh of Washington, for a flow-battery membrane.
Was the robot commercialised?
No commercialisation, patent or further development is documented in the source used here.
Quick quiz: how well do you know Oliver’s story?
What did Oliver Nicholls's robot do?
Which award did he win?
Where was Intel ISEF 2018 held?
Sources
- Intel ISEF 2018 (top award winners) — Society for Science
Checked by the Geniuses.club editorial team. Ages are given as of September 2026.
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