And Haig isnt working alone. Hes part of an InvenTeam, one of 15 groups of high school students across the country whose proposed inventions have caught the attention of the Lemelson-MIT InvenTeam initiative. After working for almost a year on proposals and being selected from hundreds of applicants, Haig and the rest of his team at Wallenpaupack Area High School in Hawley, Penn., are excited to get started. When this program came around it was an amazing opportunity to show what we can do, Haig says.
The general theme is always helping others, says invention educational officer Leigh Estabrooks with the InvenTeam Initiative. Theyre seeing these common problems in their communities and looking to solve them through technological invention. Now in its 11th year, the InvenTeam initiative helped fund wind turbines to capture airflow from highway traffic, an anti-mine robot system, a robotic coconut tree climbing device, and 152 other projects. The InvenTeam selection committee looks for schools who are dedicated and have an invention that could be feasible with a $10,000 budget.
With their grant, Haig and the Wallenpaupack team aim to create a lake wave generator to capture energy to power dock lights throughout Lake Wallenpaupack. It was a group effort to come up with the idea, Haig says. The lake is right next to usour school is right along the shoreso it made sense to come up with something to take advantage of that. Kristian Sonsteby, a technical member of the team, says wave generators operating off the coast of Norway have informed a lot of the group's research.
The teams teacher, Gene Schultz, says that the lake is the backbone of the community. The school has already received support from the PPL Corporation, the areas hydroelectric plant, and Schultz hopes his students will be able to give back with their invention. These students whove been given so much, should return that, Schultz says. Ive always felt that inventiveness and learning to help others is real important.
To Schultz, there just arent enough programs like Lemelson-MIT to help promote STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education. A 2012 study by the Condition of College and Career Readiness discovered that more than half of all high schools students are not prepared for college-level math courses. The statistic is even worse for science. Math and science isnt easy; those are the hardest subjects, Estabrooks says. Were here to help them stay in the pipeline, to encourage them.
On the other side of the continent, almost 100 miles southeast of Juneau, Alaska, Mark Nances robotics class from Mt. Edgecumbe High School also placed in the top 15 schools competing for the $10,000 prize. We looked around the community for things that we could do with our robotics team, Nance says.
The town of Sitka rests along the coastal edge with towering mountains plunging straight into icy waters. [Search and rescue] needs the ability to go out and into a variety of different areas and situations and provide eyes and ears where they couldnt reach before. Their idea? To create a search-and-rescue UAV that can establish two-way communication between emergency responders and the person in distress. Getting a little technical mentoring from the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, the team is going to use forward-looking infrared cameras paired with goggles so users can see through to the UAV. Were not inventing a new UAV, were innovating it, says Felisha Orsborn, organizer and technical team member. Were adding things in, taking things out, and using it unique ways.
Mt. Edgecumbe High School attracts students from different corners of Alaska, from small villages and large cities like Anchorage. Students play different roles, with some digging into the technical details specifics of the UAV and others helping to build a website or create a video to promote the project.
The Wallenpaupack and Mt. Edgecumbe InvenTeams will have nine months to work on their inventions before presenting their work at MIT at EurekaFest, where students will tour the campuss labs and faciliti