🇺🇸 Samuel Skotnikov

Samuel Skotnikov, of Highland Village, Texas, was a student at Marcus High School in nearby Flower Mound when he and two friends, Chanyoung Kim and Eeshaan Prashanth, set out to solve a problem that was personal rather than abstract. A fourth member of their close-knit group, a classmate named Aiden, wore a prosthetic leg following an amputation, and had shared with them how much his everyday walking still struggled against the limits of the device.

Rather than choose a tidy textbook project, the team decided to build Aiden a better leg. They began by measuring how he actually walked with his existing prosthetic, and discovered a hidden cost: the device's stiffness forced the remaining part of his amputated leg to work far harder than his intact leg, an imbalance that made every step more tiring than it needed to be. The insight framed everything that followed.

Their solution, which they named NeuroFlex, was a bionic prosthetic leg controlled not by mechanical guesswork but by the wearer's own intentions. An EEG headband reads the electrical signals of the brain, interprets how the wearer wants to move, and directs the prosthesis's motors to support that movement in real time. Crucially, the system is non-invasive, requiring no surgery or implant, which makes it far more accessible than many brain-controlled technologies.

When the team tested the prototype on Aiden, NeuroFlex correctly identified his intended movement about 98 percent of the time, a remarkable accuracy for a device built by high-school students. The engineering blended several disciplines at once, from signal processing to mechanical design, and the result was a working proof that a brain-controlled prosthetic did not have to be the exclusive product of a well-funded research lab.

In May 2025, at the 75th Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair, Skotnikov, Kim and Prashanth were awarded the $50,000 Gordon E. Moore Award for Positive Outcomes for Future Generations, one of the fair's top honours. Their work drew national coverage, with outlets from CBS Texas to specialist prosthetics publications telling the story of four best friends whose bond produced both a friendship and a limb.

The engineering challenge they took on is one that well-funded laboratories still wrestle with. Brain-controlled prosthetics have traditionally relied on invasive implants or bulky equipment, putting them out of reach for most amputees. By reading intention through a non-invasive EEG headband instead, the team aimed squarely at accessibility, designing something that could work without surgery and without a hospital's budget.

Their diagnostic groundwork mattered as much as the build. By first measuring how Aiden actually walked, the students identified that his existing prosthetic's stiffness forced his residual limb to overwork, throwing his gait out of balance. NeuroFlex was engineered to answer that specific deficiency, using motors to support the wearer's intended movement in real time rather than resisting it.

The recognition brought national attention to a story that was, at heart, about friendship. Outlets from CBS Texas to specialist prosthetics publications framed it as four best friends whose bond produced both a lifelong connection and a working limb. For Skotnikov and his teammates, the $50,000 award was validation, but the more meaningful result was a friend who could move more easily.

Asked about the project, Skotnikov kept returning to its origin. It started, he said, around helping their friend, who had shared how his current prosthetic was not really helping him. His advice to other young inventors carried the same spirit: do what you are passionate about, and do it not for the science fair but for someone you genuinely want to help. It is a philosophy of engineering that begins with a person, not a prize.