At 13, a California student innovated a device to detect falls in the dark, became America's top young scientist, and took home $25,000

A frightening fall at home can become far more dangerous when nobody is around to notice it. For 13-year-old California student Kevin Tang, the problem was personal. Experiences involving falls and strokes pushed him to think about how technology could get help to older adults faster. His answer was FallGuard, a home safety system capable of detecting falls in real time, including at night. The invention eventually took Tang to Minnesota, where he beat nine other finalists to become America's Top Young Scientist and take home a $25,000 prize.

A Personal Experience Sparked the Idea

Tang was an eighth-grade student at Cedarlane Academy in Hacienda Heights, California, when he entered the 2025 3M Young Scientist Challenge. According to his mentor, Dr Mark Gilbertson, Tang's interest in falls and strokes grew out of personal experiences. Rather than simply identifying the problem, the teenager began looking for a practical way technology could help families respond more quickly when someone falls at home. The system uses video analysis to recognise a fall and then sends an alert to loved ones through a smartphone application. It can also recognise unusual movements while someone is walking, which may be associated with a stroke.

His Device Can Work at Night

One of the features that helped Tang's project stand out was its ability to operate in low-light conditions. Many home monitoring systems depend on clear images, but Tang worked on allowing FallGuard to detect falls even in darkness, providing the possibility of round-the-clock monitoring. His Young Scientist Lab profile says the system was designed to recognise falls with high accuracy and low latency while running on everyday devices. The issue he was tackling affects millions of Americans. Citing data from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, 3M said more than 14 million older adults, about one in four, report falling each year.

Four Months Turned an Idea Into a Prototype

Tang was selected as one of 10 national finalists in the competition. Each finalist was paired with a 3M scientist for a summer mentorship designed to turn an initial idea into a working prototype. Tang worked with Gilbertson, a 3M research specialist in robotics and artificial intelligence. Over four months, he continued developing FallGuard before travelling to 3M's global headquarters in St Paul, Minnesota, for the final competition on October 13 and 14, 2025. The students were judged on far more than whether their inventions worked. The competition also assessed their research, use of STEM principles, creativity, communication and ability to explain the real-world value of their ideas.

The 13-Year-Old Took Home $25,000

On October 15, 3M and Discovery Education announced Tang as the winner of the 2025 3M Young Scientist Challenge. Along with being named America's Top Young Scientist, the California teenager received the competition's $25,000 grand prize. For Tang, however, FallGuard began with something more immediate than winning a science competition: finding a way to make a home safer when an older person is alone. His story is a reminder that young inventors do not necessarily need to begin with a laboratory or a huge research budget. Sometimes an invention begins by noticing a problem close to home — and asking whether there might be a better way to solve it.