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235 Hope Road, Tinton Falls, NJ 07724  /  732.542.4777

Kevin Yu Awarded N.E.S.T. "Promise of the Future" Award

At the Town Hall on May 30, Upper School teacher Chiara Shah presented the N.E.S.T. (Network of Educators in Science and Technology) in Association with M.I.T. “Promise of the Future” Student Award to Kevin Yu.

Mrs. Shah participated in the Science and Engineering Program for Teachers (SEPT) at MIT in 2012, and through this program, became a member of MIT’s NEST, which allows her the ability to present this award to one student each year.

Mrs. Shah said about Kevin: “The student receiving the award this year is a perfectionist when it comes to building robots and is one of the best drivers and strategists I’ve ever seen. He will win a competition and the next day, he will tear apart the robot to start over because he knows that he needs to keep innovating in order to remain competitive. He is relentless in his pursuit of perfection, working in the robotics room during study halls, lunches, evenings, and weekends. He often takes the robot home to work on it there.

During his two years at Ranney, this student has won 30 awards. He often brings home multiple awards per competition, usually between two and four different awards. Teams throughout New Jersey have had to radically change their game-plan in order to remain competitive against our awardee. Last year, at Worlds, the coach of another NJ team came up to me and said, ‘My teams, and all the NJ teams, are doing better than we ever have at Worlds because of your student. He has substantially raised the bar in NJ, and we’re all trying to play catch-up to get to his level.’ The pinnacle of his success came at Nationals this year, when his team won the Black division, advanced to the finals against the winner of the Red Division, and lost in the third match by a single point. Even if I teach for twenty or thirty more years this student will most likely end up being the most brilliant engineer that I have ever had the honor to teach and coach. It is with great pride that I announce this year’s winner is Kevin Yu.”
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Ranney School

235 Hope Road
Tinton Falls, NJ 07724
Tel. 732.542.4777

Our mission is to know and value every child, nurturing intellectual curiosity and confidence, and inspiring students to lead honorably, think creatively, and contribute meaningfully to society.