Gulliver Prep senior Maxim Salikhov is the school’s Silver Knight nominee in Digital and Interactive Media. His Silver Knight project was the creation of a web application called Go Gulliver.
“Gulliver switched to block scheduling,” he says. “It’s convoluted with four kinds of days. It’s a utility for everyone to use to figure out where to be at what time.” He started work on the site last February and worked on it until August. “Which is when I presented it at orientation and everyone started using it,” he says.
The web application was his idea. He talked to his computer science teacher about it and they decided on a website instead of a phone app. “The way I addressed that, instead of creating native app, I created a website that functions very well on phones,” he says. “It’s easy to use. I try to present information using tables and outlined areas so that it’s easy to see what you need to see,” he says. The site was particularly helpful at the beginning of the school year. Now that students are used to the schedule, it’s not as used quite as much.
Like a true computer programmer, Salikhov likes the challenge of writing code. “I enjoy programming things,” he says. “Especially when I’m writing code for a while and it works and I can see it work. Lately, I’ve been primarily interested in website development languages. They all have purposes that they are better suited for.”
He plans on studying computer science in college. He’s already been accepted to Georgia Tech but he hasn’t made a final decision on where he’s going. He’s waiting on several colleges to send their acceptances. At Gulliver, he’s taken computer as well as engineering classes. He’s been involved with two type of robotics team. The first team built VEX robots. And they also taught students from the Young Men’s Preparatory Academy the basics of robotics and helped them build their own VEX robots.
“We hosted a competition at the Miami Science Museum for those kids,” he says. There were enough students to create seven or eight robots. “Now I am involved in the FIRST Robotics team,” he says. “This is our third year.” FIRST Robotics teams build bigger robots that weigh an average of 100 pounds. “They are built out of metal,” he says. “They are more bare bones. You have to adhere to rules as far as motors and control systems.” They have gone to competitions and improved their standing in each event.
The engineering program has also given him the opportunity to work on the Eco Cooker program. The Eco Cooker is a device that converts manure into methane to be used for cooking, heating, and electricity. “It’s a way to create carbon neutral energy,” he says. “There are other bio digesters, but they are on a much larger scale. Ours is intended to be small to be portable. Our goal is to put them into third world countries.” The cooker’s design is such that strong odors from the manure is not an issue. He says you can only smell manure if the body of the digester is open, but to work properly, the digester needs to be sealed.
Salikhov is also a musician. He’s played viola since fifth grade, starting at the American School in London. He moved to Miami in time for his freshman year. Before London, he lived in Russia.
