School Year & Project Context

This is my third year in Ms. White's Engineering Class. During the spring semester last year our big assignment was to begin to brainstorm and think about innovations. We worked individually then together to brainstorm problems and solutions we each might be facing or aware of. Then, we individually created invention proposals. Ms. White then selected one specific proposal to be submitted as our InvenTeam submission. My proposal is below.

This summer we learned our group has been selected as a finalist for the competition! We now have till September 8 to submit our final application. The application is extensive and will be in need of a lot of technical writing. Here I will document the process but not the details of our idea. The first information we got from Ms. White was feedback on our initial proposal. Long story short, the feedback that was given stated that our proposal was strong but we should consider changing our idea because there were several already invented ideas just like the one we proposed.

Back to Brainstorming

Below you will see our collaborative brainstorms. We used the "Coggle" platform and attempted to put our heads together to generate a new idea of a problem we are passionate about finding a solution for. To do this we started out wit six categories. Since we know that innovation usually stems from previous problems, we did a problem brainstorm first.

The problem categories we created:

1. Local Problems

2. Covid19

3. Structural Racism

4. Bike Theft (original problem)

5. Random Ideas

6. Climate Change

During class we were asked we were asked to share out our idea that we liked the most then we as classmates gave feedback using the "yes and' method. Above is an idea I came up with. Next we had to do describe "Who ,What, How" of the invention slides. We then researched our ideas to see their competitive products and attempted to get a better understanding of the problem. Mine are below.

Team Proposal Video

This week we worked on making our InvenTeam invention "proposal" video. The video had to be intriguing so that we can catch the audience's attention. It consists of statements that each member in the class can read aloud after introducing themselves. Three of our teammates was assigned to do this part. The video had to be a (high quality) video of ourselves wearing a white Drew button down. The video was expected to be taken in a location with no distractions in the background. In the video we had to say the exact sentence next to your name (this the same one the three teammates wrote for us). Tone had to be “serious". We had to record the video horizontally so the resulting video is wider than it is tall. After that, we each had to put our video in our class drive so it could then be edited and combined into one complete video.

Learning how to create circuit diagrams and circuits

Leadership Team Selection

On Flipgrid, we each had to create a pitch answering question on why we want to be apart of the team, how we would contribute to the team in the future and how you already contributed to the team. If you wanted to be a leader for something, you had to mention that in your pitch. Later, we will vote for who the leaders should be.

Documentation of the last 3 weeks of S2 and Winter Break

InvenTeam Project Reflection

The second semester of our 10-grade year and our entire junior year was nothing but ordinary. We were going through a worldwide pandemic with the outbreak of Covid19 and a country-wide racial divide following the death of George Floyd. Despite everything that was going on our Engineering Applications class had a commitment to brainstorm and create an idea for an invention that could potentially help our community through these troubling times. We decided to come up with a device that would improve police accountability during traffic stops. We knew this invention would be a huge challenge but we also knew when created it could change many lives. When we first started we were eager and excited. Being rewarded 10,000 dollars to created a device that will change lives is not something we took lightly and we worked as hard as we could under the circumstances we were under. Completing this entire project virtually not one time seeing my peers in person was the ultimate struggle. Sharing screens and taking pictures of code on our phones became everyday things. Four-hour zoom calls on our Wellness Wednesday and home visits to Ms. White were some of the other things we had to do to get things done. Although we didn't present our device in person to Lemelson MIT in Boston, being able to virtually present our device and showcase all of our hard work has also been rewarding. We as 16 and 17-year-olds have experienced the entire invention process, learned how to work AWS, Raspberry PI, and Python. We working together completely virtually to integrate all the components of our device into one and I'm proud of everyone involved. This project has impacted my future career goals by opening my eyes to how I will like to use STEM to help the world. I plan on majoring in Environmental Engineering to be a part of the change that improves our planet. Also being a part of the Machine Learning team I enjoyed coding so Computer Science is also something I'm interested in.