Mexican teen wins gold in Indonesia for a fire extinguisher that uses sound

Most fire extinguishers fight flames with water, foam or chemical powder. Ángela Karime Venegas Hernández, a 16-year-old student from Altamira, in Mexico's Tamaulipas state, is trying something else: sound. Her prototype, Vortex Tech, has just won a gold medal at an international science fair in Indonesia.

Who she is

Ángela studies at CETis 78, a public technical high school in Altamira. (Some outlets print her surnames the other way round, as Hernández Venegas.) She built the project with her teacher and adviser, José Arturo Hernández Muñoz. Before going abroad, the project, formally titled "Fire Suppression System Using Acoustic", was recognised at a Tamaulipas state competition for creativity and technological innovation.

How Vortex Tech works

The device does not spray anything. A 12-volt battery powers a frequency generator, an amplifier and a speaker, which together produce sound at around 30 hertz, close to the lowest pitch people can hear.

Aimed at a small flame, these slow, powerful sound waves make the air around it pulse back and forth. That movement stretches and disturbs the flame and upsets the mix of fuel and oxygen it needs, until it goes out. It is a bit like blowing out a candle, except the "breath" is a sound wave.

According to the student, her prototypes have put out test flames from wood, flammable liquids, electronics and cooking oil, usually in about five to eight seconds. Reports say she worked on different versions for around a year and ran more than 100 tests. She is also working on an automatic version that detects a flame before switching on.

The gold medal in Indonesia

Ángela competed at the International Science and Invention Fair (ISIF) 2026, held in Indonesia from 13 to 18 October 2026, in the Technology category at the secondary-school level. Reports put her category at roughly 110 projects from 25 countries, though published totals vary.

Besides the gold, she received the IYSA Semi Grand Award from the Indonesian Young Scientist Association. It gives her a place at the virtual Indonesia International Applied Science Project Olympiad (I2ASPO) 2026.

Why it matters

The idea is not brand new. In 2015, two engineering students at George Mason University in the US, Viet Tran and Seth Robertson, showed that low-frequency sound could put out small fires. What stands out here is that a public-school student in Tamaulipas built her own working version, tested it on several kinds of fire and took it to an international stage.

A sound-based extinguisher would leave no water damage, foam or chemical residue, which could one day matter in kitchens, labs or around electronics.

It is still early. Vortex Tech is a student prototype, its results come from the project's own tests, and it has not been independently certified as a fire extinguisher. How well it works depends on the size of the fire, the fuel, the distance and the power of the sound. For now it is a clever proof of concept, not a replacement for a real extinguisher or the fire brigade.

Sources

• Infobae, Estudiante mexicana gana medalla de oro en Indonesia con su extintor que apaga el fuego mediante ondas sonoras (20 Oct 2026)
• Yahoo Tech, Mexican student invents sound-powered fire extinguisher
• Emprendedor, Mexicana gana oro en Indonesia con extintor que apaga el fuego con sonido
• George Mason University, Pump up the bass to douse a blaze (2015)