The top 10 finalists from across the country of the 3M Young Scientists Challenge presented their projects on Monday at the 3M Innovation Center in St. Paul, Minnesota.

"What I essentially created was this gel that's able to remove and degrade microplastics in water," said finalist Sheyna Patel from Orlando, Florida.

The students, in grades five through eight, are tackling real-world problems.

"Which, essentially, how this works is that the microplastics have this negative kind of charge, and I designed this hydrogel to have this positive charge, and when these opposite charges come together," said Patel.

The gel absorbs the plastics, which, when removed, cleans the water and the environment.

"I created the Flavo Peel Cup, which is a cup made out of fruit peels that I created to do three things, which is, one, reduce plastic pollution. Because the cups are made out of bioplastic, they have the ability to replace plastic cups while also giving people nutrients," said finalist Amaira Srivastavaa, from Gilbert, Arizona.

The cups are also upcycling fruit peel waste and releasing flavonoids into the cup of water, making it nutrient-rich for the drinker. 

There was also Kevin Tang's invention, the Fall Guard.

"It has a fall detection algorithm, and I created it with two main steps," Tang, a finalist from Hacienda Heights, California, said. "One is a lay-down detection step, which checks if the person is laying down. Then it goes to the previous few frames and checks if the person had a sudden drop in, like the shoulders, to detect the fall."

The device doesn't have to be worn by the user, so it doesn't have to be constantly charged.

"These are incredibly talented young scientists. They are creative, they're resilient and they have really a drive to solve problems," said mentor Rodrigo Marmol.

"This is just an extremely talented group of individuals this year. I am extremely impressed with all of them. It's been a fantastic journey," said mentor Ann Gilma.

The winner will be announced on Tuesday. They will get the title of America's Top Young Scientist and receive a $25,000 prize.