Robinson High graduate shines in global science video competition

In a two-minute video available on YouTube, a tall, lanky teen with a ballcap turned backwards takes two minutes to explain some tricky astrophysics in plain language.

Mathew Ruggieri, a 2024 Robinson High School graduate, tosses a bowling ball into stretchy striped sheet to depict gravity. A golf ball rolls straight on the sheet until its path follows a curve around heavier mass of the bowling ball.

The video by the multi-talented Ruggieri has reached the final stage of competition in an international science video contest, called the 2024 Breakthrough Junior Challenge.

Ruggieri was chosen for the final 16 contestants, among 30 semifinalists from around the world. A selection committee of top-class scholars and science leaders that includes renowned professors and retired astronauts will select up to 5 of the 30 to vie with regional and global winners of a popular vote contest that ended this past weekend.

Prizes include $250,000 in college scholarships for the winner, a $100,000 science lab for the winner's school and a $50,000 award for one of the winner's teachers.

Ruggieri produced the video this summer, between Robinson High School graduation this spring and starting classes at McLennan Community College. The product is a visually engaging and scientifically accurate video that explains the concept of gravitational lensing, in which massive objects between a light source and an observer bend the path of the light.

"I knew for sure I wanted to do (a video on) physics, because the three categories were life science, mathematics or physics, and I was just more drawn to physics specifically, like astrophysics and stuff in space," Ruggieri said in an interview.

Founded in 2015, the challenge invites young people 13 to 18 to create videos on concepts in physical, mathematical and life sciences and vie for $400,000 in prizes, contest publicist Shannon Darcy said. This year's contest attracted 2,300 entrants and over the life of the contest they have entered from nearly every country in the world, Darcy said.

Ruggieri, who has been making videos since elementary school, said he also entered this contest before his junior year of high school and didn't get as far as he has this time.

In addition to creating videos, playing tennis and the French horn, Ruggieri said he has been passively interested in space and physics since he was a youngster.

Ruggieri's mother, April Ruggieri, said Friday that she and her husband, Mat Ruggieri Sr., Mathew's father, are quite proud of both their sons. Michael's younger brother, Michael, Mathew's, excels at rebuilding old cars, woodworking and playing guitar.

Mathew has long had a gift for storytelling and making videos, she said.

"Mathew, he's that kid that's been doing this since he was 5 years old, telling stories to his grandmother, me, his dad, his brother," said April Ruggieri, a Robinson school librarian.

"As Mathew grew from the age of 5, he decided he wanted to tell stories with images and well as words, so we got him Mickey Mouse camera for Christmas.

"And so he would take pictures of things and animals, like the chicken from the backyard, and make up stories for us about them," April Ruggieri said. "And he loved trains. So, we were always going all over Texas looking at trains and museums, and he would take picture, and then he would tell stories about the pictures."

By the time Mathew reached fourth grade, his parents had gotten him a video camera, and he started making stop-motion videos. Tim Burton's "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and Guillermo del Torro's "Pinocchio" are examples of films made with stop-motion techniques.

Around fourth grade, Mathew met Willie Thomas, then an audiovisual technician for Robinson schools, and now director of media integration. He doesn't teach students directly in the classroom, but the team he leads helps them make the videos for morning announcements from elementary school through high school.

Mathew calls Thomas a mentor who inspired him to make videos.

"And at that time, especially in Robinson, a kid that age, doing that was incredible," Thomas said of Mathew's fourth-grade videos. "And it wasn't just like some run-of-the-mill stop motion, it was really good."

Thomas said he met Mathew at a gifted-and-talented expo on making videos and began talking to him about where he would like take this and finding out that passion. Thomas said he and Mathew would talk about how to set up and frame scenes and shots in his videos throughout his time in school. He would also advise Mathew on what cameras and microphones to use in middle school and high school.

By the time Mathew reached high school, Thomas said he began to compete in University Interscholastic League competitions for academics and gifted and talented projects. At Robinson High School Ross Caraway is the UIL academics coach.

Mathew competed in the UIL film competition during his junior and senior years of high school, Caraway said. He competed for Caraway in expository essay writing.

"Mathew was also first chair French horn in Texas (All-State Band) and a member of the district champion boys tennis team at Robinson High," Caraway said.

"He was a state finalist two years in a row in film, and he was a regional finalist in the ready writing (essay contest)," Caraway said.

Caraway said Mathew was one of those young people who are able to do many things well.

"Robinson ISD ... does a great job of allowing students many different avenues to showcase their talents, and for Mathew that was the filmmaking competition," Caraway said.

For his own future, Mathew is considering film school and thinking seriously about getting a pilot's license in college.

Mathew finds flying fascinating and believes he can get to a paying job as a pilot faster than he can with making videos and documentaries. But as of last week, his long-term goal is to be a documentary videographer or filmmaker.

The winner of the Breakthrough Junior Challenge will be announced in November or early next year.