North Adams freshman wins national wearable design challenge with RiskWatch

North Adams freshman Eros Dunkin brought a national STEM honor back to Adams County with a project aimed at one of the most basic human needs: getting help when someone is lost, frightened or in danger. His first-place finish in the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education K-12 Impactful Wearables Design Student Challenge put a small-school student on a national stage and put a local name at the center of a competition built around practical problem-solving.

Dunkin’s winning entry, RiskWatch, is a wristwatch-style wearable designed to monitor individually profiled stress biomarkers. When those signals point to a dangerous situation, the device is designed to alert first responders through Bluetooth and sound a local alarm, creating a fast response tool that could help families, caregivers and communities trying to protect children, older adults and other vulnerable people. Dunkin said the idea grew out of stories about missing seniors and bullying, and he wanted to build something that could work like a silent protector.

ORISE said the wearables challenge invited K-12 students to design a device that monitors or solves a problem in a community or in the world, with an emphasis on innovation, practicality, user-friendliness and meaningful impact. The competition awarded eight prizes total, with two winners in each grade band, from K-2 through 9-12. Judges also looked for a creative name, a clear explanation of the device’s purpose, how it is worn and how it improves daily life, a rubric that fit closely with what Dunkin built in RiskWatch.

For North Adams, the win is another sign that student talent in Adams County can travel well beyond the county line when classroom curiosity meets a chance to compete. Dunkin had already been selected as one of only 12 students to attend ORISE’s Artificial Intelligence Mini-Academy in 2023, and he was also chosen as one of 26 students from a 13-state region for the Appalachian Regional Commission’s Appalachian STEM Academy in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Those opportunities show a student who has been building toward this kind of work over time, not someone who stumbled into a one-time prize.

ORISE, managed by Oak Ridge Associated Universities for the U.S. Department of Energy, says its K-12 programs include scholarly competitions, free lesson plans, summer workshops, science camps, technology training and other research opportunities. For Adams County, Dunkin’s win is a reminder that a freshman from North Adams can help answer a national problem with a local story, and do it with a device designed to protect people when seconds matter most.