Personal Project 

2024-2025

Annelise is a Northville High School sophomore working on her IB Personal Project through the Personal Project elective class. From a young age, she has been comfortable in the water but wanted to use her capability to master a thrilling new skill: scuba diving. Annelise took the Open Water Diver course and the Enriched Air Nitrox course (for diving with blends of air containing over 22% oxygen) with Huron Scuba, Snorkel & Adventure Travel Inc. She has completed 20 hours of online homework to prepare for two in-person equipment and technique classes and five closed-water dives at Dexter Community Pool. Learning about the importance of respecting wildlife in her scuba course, Annelise knew she had to learn more about the environment she was going to dive in. She researched coral reefs and will produce artwork based on her research so she could be knowledgeable about the underwater terrain she will see. Annelise and her family plan to travel to Hawaii during the winter break in December 2024 to complete her diving certification and where she will perform at least two dives in a real coral reef. In the future, Annelise plans to use her new skills to dive locally and on future vacations!

2023-2024

Rishi is a Northville High School sophomore who completed his IB Personal Project, Chess-A Game for All, as an elective, extracurricular endeavor. Learning how to play the game of chess at the young age of three and developing his skills to play at competitive levels of chess on a national stage, he has a devotion to using his abilities to create awareness of the game while providing for charitable causes. On several occasions, he has tutored younger students, learning the game, so they too can play at a level that demands precision and concentration. As a result, Rishi sought out a way to further spread his dedication to the game while raising funds for an innovative chess program. With this belief and understanding, he was determined to invigorate the chess world of Northville with the first-ever Northville Charity Chess Tournament at the Northville District Library. He realized that the voyage through the MYP Personal Project would be the venue to accomplish this feat. On a warm and sunny afternoon, the vision became a reality as close to thirty scholastic players, ranging from beginner to advanced experience, came together from across Northville and surrounding cities, to play in a friendly but competitive tournament while raising funds for the Youth Scholastic Women in Chess Initiative of the United States Chess Federation. In the future, he hopes to assemble more tournaments for philanthropic purposes. He would like to thank his advisor, Mrs. Beth Richert, for her valuable guidance during the project.

Saharsh, a sophomore, is completing the IB MYP Personal Project as an extracurricular activity. Since the age of four, Saharsh has always been fascinated by the countries of the world and their respective flags. In 2021, he was also inspired to learn video editing and create his own gaming channel.  Noting the lack of awareness many high school students have about other countries and their flags, Saharsh decided to create a brand new YouTube channel called "Flags of the World." His goal was to upload educational yet entertaining videos that teach viewers about the history and meaning behind each country's flag. To produce these informative and engaging videos, Saharsh had to thoroughly research each country's flag. He then formatted the information into easy-to-understand chunks, interspersed with occasional jokes to keep the content entertaining and enjoyable for viewers. Saharsh plans to continue uploading new videos to his "Flags of the World" YouTube channel, with the aim of further educating others about the diverse and fascinating flags from around the globe. Through his passion and dedication, he hopes to inspire more people to learn about the world's countries and their unique cultural identities.

Elliott is a sophomore taking the MYP personal project course. His goal is to bring his passions of engineering and music together in a fully functioning set of four musical instruments. Each instrument is entirely designed and built by hand using the several tools available to him and his 3D printer. Elliott’s instruments consist of a set of tunable 3D-printed drums, a PVC flute, a pipe slide, and a full-scale upright bass made of wood.  The construction taught Elliott many valuable skills in designing and completing projects, as well as every step of the way learning more about how instruments and music work as a whole. Every piece ended up functioning well, with every part being able to play a wide range of notes at accurate pitches. While a few more complex parts were bought or borrowed, the overall process of constructing these instruments helped achieve the goal of expanding his knowledge in engineering and music. 

Swara is a Northville High School sophomore completing her IB MYP Personal Project as an elective class. During her trip to India in the summer of 2022, she had the opportunity to visit her uncle’s surgery center who is also a practicing oral and maxillofacial surgeon in Mumbai, India. During the visit, she saw several before and after pictures of kids born with cleft lip/ palate deformities. She also learned that though cleft surgery is relatively simple there are hundreds of underprivileged kids across the globe who have to live with this condition and the associated stigma of a facial deformity. A cleft palate condition leaves an individual impacted with many everyday obstacles to overcome like eating, breathing, hearing, and speaking throughout their lives. This has inspired Swara to learn and do some detailed research about clefts. For her personal project, Swara led a community event to spread awareness of this condition and set up a fundraiser through Smile Train organization (the world’s largest cleft charity) to raise funds to sponsor free surgeries for underprivileged kids. The community event held in December of 2023 was a great success, and she raised funds to sponsor 6+ free surgeries and create 50 custom cards for cleft patients as part of the event. Swara is extremely passionate and wants to continue raising awareness and funds for this great cause for years to come. 

Luca is a sophomore at Northville High School who is currently immersed in his IB Personal Project course. He has taken on restoring the historic William Crow Stone House in Danville, Kentucky. He is going through an architectural design process to salvage what’s left of the house by restoring it to its original glory and adding to what’s deteriorated with his artistic modern-day expression. This meticulous renovation project not only showcases Luca's passion for architecture but also promises to resurrect the rich history of the house, dating back to the 1780s. Once this building is beautifully restored, it will become a significant part of the Luca Mariano Distillery tour, where visitors can go back in time to learn about The William Crow Family and Guy Jones through a museum-style home tour. 

Veronica is a sophomore at Northville High School currently completing her MYP Personal Project as an extracurricular activity. After receiving a 3D printer from her father as a birthday present, Veronica began printing designs found on community websites such as Thingiverse. However, growing increasingly bothered at her inability to print her own designs, Veronica decided to learn how to use CAD software and make her own ideas come to life. For her personal project, Veronica chose to model and create a chess set using Onshape, which is one of the many available CAD programs to design. After many revisions to her designs and failed prints, Veronica finished her chess set and her goal to be able to design, model, and print her own creations became a reality. In the future, Veronica hopes to continue to advance her knowledge of computer-automated design and move on to more complex modeling techniques. 

Ben is a sophomore at Northville High School completing his IB Personal Project as an extracurricular activity. Since he was three years old, Ben has been interested in airplanes and flying. His passion to become a pilot led him to choose to learn to fly as his personal project. Ben’s project entails gaining the knowledge and ability to completely fly an aircraft on his own. He is currently completing his goals of at least eight hours of flight time documented in his logbook, ground lessons to learn the intricacies of flying, reading and studying the Jeppesen Private Pilot textbook, and passing the pre-solo flying exam as administered by the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration). Once Ben turns sixteen in June (the minimum age required), he will move on to flying solo and completing the minimum forty flight hours and other remaining requirements to get his full private pilot license. Ben is looking forward to continuing his journey in flight and traveling to fun places in the future. 

Sanjana is a sophomore at Northville High School who completed her IB Personal Project as an extracurricular activity. Upon learning that household chemicals contain hazardous ingredients that can cause cancer, kidney damage, and more, Sanjana realized that consumers have little transparency when it comes to the ingredients in the products they use every day. As a result, she created an IOS application called RevealTheIngredient. RevealTheIngredient uses computer vision to extract ingredients from various chemical ingredient label types to return information on each ingredient. To create the app, she used Swift in Xcode. Once a user takes an image of a chemical ingredient label by clicking the camera button on the user interface (UI), the image is processed, computer vision is used to extract the ingredient text, and the text undergoes processing and cleaning. The ingredients are then connected to a database to retrieve ingredient information. The ingredient names and descriptions are then displayed on the UI. To test the accuracy of the app’s text extraction, she tested it on 100 digital ingredient labels and 50 physical ingredient labels. She found that, in both trial conditions, the average accuracy exceeded 96%. Based on the results of the trials, she has determined that RevealTheIngredient can extract ingredients with a high level of confidence in a real setting. In the future, she hopes to release the app onto the app store as a free application for all to use. 

Nila is an NHS sophomore who completed her personal project, titled Mehndi for Mentees, as an extracurricular. Since she was a toddler, Nila has had an immense fascination with the South Asian art of mehndi, also known as henna. This love for mehndi has grown and strengthened over the years.  Nila has also mentored a Ugandan student, Andrew, through the organization Village Book Builders for the past one and a half years. Every week, Nila and Andrew spend an hour working on math, reading, writing, and conversational skills. Village Book Builders builds libraries, funds resources, and improves education in underprivileged communities in South America, Africa, and Asia, which allows the organization to break the cycle of systemic poverty. For her personal project, Nila chose to raise money for Village Book Builders through a school fundraiser where she sold mehndi tattoos. After practicing for countless hours over the course of 2 months and immensely growing and improving her skills, Nila was able to create beautiful tattoos in an efficient manner. She used these skills to run a successful 4-day fundraiser, where she performed her art during Seminar for prices ranging from $1 to $20. Nila exceeded her goal of $200 by raising $216.18 - a considerable feat as she was selling a service and not a product. In these ways, Nila achieved her goal by honoring her culture, becoming more skilled in mehndi, and uplifting underprivileged communities. 

Luana is currently a sophomore at Northville High School and she just completed the MYP personal project as an extracurricular activity. For her project, she decided on creating a blog consisting of Brazilian recipes. She interviewed several relatives to learn more about her Brazilian heritage and gather history about the recipes her family loves. Luana then made high-quality videos of her cooking each recipe. She also typed out each recipe in English and added a bit of the history behind every recipe. Luana then compiled all of the information, recipes, and videos on a website that anyone can access. In the end, Luana did this for 7 different meals. She hopes that her blog will teach people about Brazilian culture and cuisine while also inspiring them to learn more about their own. 

https://luanaf2022.wixsite.com/lenascookbook 

Diya recently completed her IB MYP Personal Project as an extracurricular activity. Ever since she was really young, Diya had an interest in music. When COVID started, Diya was introduced to the world of musical composition. For her project, Diya wanted to advance her composing skills by creating a violin piece with a piano accompaniment. During the project, she researched various genres of music in order to apply them to her composition. After some trial and error with planning, Diya managed to create a concrete plan and began to execute her project. She found a free music composition software, Noteflight, and used the software to compose her piece, titled “Ocean,” using previous knowledge and new skills she developed throughout the project. Diya was not able to have a live performance, as initially planned, and instead opted to create a simple music video to accompany her composition. She hopes to use her newly gained knowledge to create more compositions in the future.

Link to video: https://youtu.be/gw0zV_VO91g 

Allison recently completed the IB MYP Personal Project as an elective class. Her project was to design and create two sets of boat racks for the Northville High School Rowing Team. Growing up, she loved to build and create things and more recently she fell in love with the sport of rowing. Combining her two passions together, she immediately jumped at the opportunity to help out her team and friends. Her project was focused on aspects of engineering and design, which she had no previous experience. Allison spent time writing and researching design structure and shape but not long into her project, she realized she would need to know how to weld if she wanted to make a strong lasting structure. She reached out to Schoolcraft College and their Welding Program, where welding professor Coley McLean and some of her welding students assisted in the manufacturing of her project. After reviewing Allison's design plans, consulting, and some additional communication Professor McLean's welding students completed the welds for the racks. Allison then finished the boat racks by applying a rust resistant application and paint as well as some NHS lettering.  The boat racks were finally brought to Kent Lakes Arctic Classic Regatta held on November 6, 2021 for the final race of the season. Allison says “They turned out better than I ever could have imagined and I am excited to continue to use them for years to come”.

Lily is currently a sophomore at Northville High School taking the IB MYP Personal Project as an elective class. She chose this class to complete a project she has always wanted to do and also to learn the fundamentals of project management that will help her in any future career. Growing up, Lily has always had a strong love for the outdoors. Lily currently runs on the NHS Cross Country team where she spends many hours training in the area on a variety of trails. So for her personal project, she decided to combine her two passions together and create a nature/activity trail in her subdivision. The idea came when Lily noticed an old-growth forest area and decided that she could make a trail through it, without disturbing the nearby environment. It is her hope that families and neighbors will be able to enjoy the trail for many years! Eventually, people will not only be able to walk on it but also mountain bike on this trail which is another favorite activity Lily likes to do in her spare time.     

Michael is currently a sophomore at Northville High School completing the IB MYP Personal Project as an elective class. For his project, he has decided to learn how to train and run a half marathon which is 13.1 miles. Michael has always had a personal interest in running and runs on the Northville High School Cross Country team. After completing his cross country season, he put together a detailed training plan for how he is going to train for the half marathon. This includes running every day, and within that, how much and what pace he should be keeping while training.  Michael recently completed a short-term goal of running in a 10k race on October 31st at Maybury State Park. Using this plan, and gradually working to run farther at a faster pace, Michael has put himself into a position to succeed in his first half-marathon. Michael will run his half marathon on December 4th in Winter Trail Fest in Brighton.

Emily, a current sophomore at Northville High School, recently completed her IB MYP Personal Project as an extracurricular activity. Ever since she learned to knit and crochet at five years old, she has loved to make things. She started participating in craft shows starting in 3rd grade and decided to take this opportunity to start her business professionally. During this project, Emily researched and learned about the fundamentals of business, then started her own by designing and hand-making products, taking product pictures, constructing a website and Facebook page, then uploading products to the website. She then utilized business strategies to advertise on Facebook and fulfill orders from home. As she experimented with using different crafting techniques for products, she analyzed the response from customers, then altered her approach in hopes that her business would become successful. Emily loves exploring business by sharing her creativity with others and is excited to move forward with her business even after the conclusion of this project.

https://crochetingsmiles.company.site

Wesley is a sophomore at Northville High School completing his IB MYP Personal Project as an extracurricular activity. Noticing how often teachers are undervalued, Wesley took it upon himself to discover some of the ins and outs of being a teacher. He combined his fascination for teaching along with his interest in podcasts to form his own podcast discussing what it means to be a teacher. After sitting down to talk to some of his previous teachers, he then had to learn audio editing skills in order to make a cohesive podcast. In addition to the audio editing skills learned, Wesley hoped his project could teach him important messages about who teachers really are. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/144ebyomztyaN1rBz5wcQYBRtI0xa2MVS/view

Katie is currently a sophomore at Northville High School taking the IB MYP Personal Project as an elective course. Growing up spending summers at her grandparents’ cottage on Lake Michigan led her to develop an interest in the Great Lakes watershed. This interest was furthered by science units on the environment, invasive species, and sustainability. For her project, she combined these topics with her fascination with photography, learned the basics of the skill, and researched the Great Lakes watershed. Her goal is to make a photo story illustrating environmental problems in the Great Lakes watershed, which she hopes will capture the issues in ways words could not. 

Gianluca is a sophomore student at NHS and recently finished the IB Personal Project by completing the PP class. Gianluca had an interest in computers since he first laid eyes on one when he was 5. He developed a passion for computers and has discovered that he has a high aptitude for all aspects of computers. His specific interests are in computer applications, the inner workings that make a computer function and pushing a computer to its limits. The process of studying computer electronics sparked an exceptionally high interest in extreme computer design.  3D modeling, videography and digital imagery are some of the applications he tested to the limits and ultimately decided to challenge himself and build what would describe as an extraordinary, complex supercomputer. For his project, he designed and built a custom, water cooled, wall mounted computer, with the world's most powerful consumer CPU and GPU. He also designed a custom, sophisticated water cooling loop that will cool his computer. Building a computer from the ground up can be very intimidating, but it’s one of the most satisfying projects he has completed.The opportunity to learn a skill he will keep forever, and at the same time have fun, has made this a valuable, hands-on educational experience.

Callen is a sophomore student at NHS and recently completed his MYP Personal Project. In 9th grade he found an interest in technology and combined with my interest in video games and hands on things; developed a curiosity to build his own computer. Callen wanted to build a super computer to game, but also explore the possibility of video editing in the future. Building a computer requires a lot of research with regards to the components and understanding if they will work together.  The part list was a crucial step in the building of the computer.  Once all the components arrived and with the help of YouTube he built his computer. Callen hopes to inspire others to share an interest in building their own technology.

Mya is currently a completing the IB MYP Personal Project at Northville High School. In middle school, Mya found an interest in poetry that led to a passion for reciting poetry. With the help of one of her teachers, Ms. Tabor, she started competing in Bard Competitions. A Bard Competition is a competition in which students recite a poem that has meaning to them in front of a panel of judges. She enjoyed competing until she aged out of the competition. For her Personal Project, Mya decided to create her own Bard Competition for the students of Northville High School. With the help of Ms. Tabor as her mentor, who lives in New York, Mya hopes to help students grow an interest in poetry through this competition and further expects this competition to bring joy to people in these rough times! 

Nilan is currently a sophomore at Northville High School completing the IB MYP Personal Project. He saw the personal project as an opportunity to educate others about his family’s experience dealing with skin cancer. In early fall,Nilan set a goal to create an educational video to bring awareness to skin cancer, its causes, identification, and best practices to prevent it. Nilan hopes that the students and the community of Northville will take care of their skin for years to come to prevent skin cancer.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FheV_L2Ybkmq2AN9gvHiHn5Rbquvvjqi/view?usp=sharing

Maria is currently a sophomore at Northville High School and has recently completed her IB MYP personal project as an extracurricular activity outside of class time. Growing up with a younger brother with Marfan Syndrome, Maria has always been impassioned about raising awareness and creating a better future for those with Marfan's. After detailed research regarding the impacts of the genetic disorder and the immense benefits fundraising brings to the Marfan community, she embarked on organizing a fundraiser called "Light the Night."  Light the Night connected various communities through educating the supporters about Marfan Syndrome and by releasing lighted balloons to light up the night and hearts with hope for Marfan's. The fundraiser resulted in over $2,000 in funds donated to the Marfan Foundation. Maria has always had a passion for raising awareness and support for those often overlooked and hopes her efforts will have a lasting impact not only in the Marfan community but also in the local community so that her peers will consider everyone with an open heart and seek further understanding for our differences.  

Rachael is a sophomore at Northville High School completing her IB MYP Personal Project taking the Personal Project elective class. For her project, Rachael went vegan for a month and recorded her data and observations along the way. She created a  detailed blog to display all of the observations she made and how it impacted her life. In her blog, Rachel includes recipes she made during her vegan trial period, daily entries on the progress and she also answered some of the main questions people may have before going vegan. Rachael hopes that her blog\advice  will help answer questions for anyone interested in becoming vegan.  

https://rachael4plants.weebly.com 

Mina is a sophomore attending Northville High School. As a Varsity Lacrosse player she hoped to base her project on the sport that she loves. This is an extremely general area; therefore Mina narrowed it down to creating a video about lacrosse for girls in the Middle East. In the future, Mina has plans to continue her project by traveling to Dubai with her cousin to teach girls how to play lacrosse.  The filming took place at the University of Michigan where her cousin Quinn and Mira both players on the Michigan Women’s Lacrosse team assisted in the production of the video.  

Here is a link to Mina's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PzIzOzr8a0&feature=youtu.be 

Hadley is a tenth grader and very happy to be working on her MYP Personal Project. She is full of creative energy and has decided to channel it into something that she loves. Being a part of the Costuming Team of Northville High School Drama Club for nearly five shows now, she has chosen a project revolving around costume design. Captivated by the costumes of Guillermo Del Toro’s Crimson Peak, Hadley intends to research the designs and recreate a gown from the film. During this process she will be gaining many new skills and improving upon old ones… hopefully learning along the way!

Jason is presently a tenth grade student completing his MYP Personal Project. He has participated in robotics for seven years, and carries a love for it to this day.  He has always been interested in robotics that are compact, but useful. His specific area of interest is "How can robotics augment the human body and improve its ability."  Jason's MYP project is focuses on this aspect as he works towards completing a robotic glove to increase one's grip strength. Part of the process will be measure strength with and without the use of the robotic glove. He hopes to complete something streamlined and functional by the end of the year. 

Regan is currently working to complete her 10th grade MYP personal project. For many years she has found interest in discovering ways to express her artistic and creative passions. She recently realized her love and appreciation towards interior decorating, home renovations, and mini do-it-yourself room decor projects. Regan plans to use her artistic abilities to completely redesign and decorate a bedroom while creating a time-lapse video to showcase the process of this renovation. Throughout her project she’ll be removing wallpaper, repainting, measuring and shopping for items to use or repurpose and fill her entire bedroom with decor. She has never taken on such a large project on her own and is excited to use this challenge to improve upon her interior designing talents. 

Maya is a tenth grader who is currently working on her personal project as part of the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program. Her focus is on learning ASL (American Sign Language) and putting what she learned into interpreting a piece of music. Maya has always been interested in learning ASL because she thinks that everyone should be able to communicate with each other, hearing or otherwise. Her goal is to perform this piece and the interpretation of this piece at the Personal Project Celebration night in April 2019. She hopes that others will be inspired by her efforts and also want to try and learn American Sign Language as well! 

Caitlin is currently a 10th grader completing her MYP Personal Project. Inspired by her love for our four-legged fur friends and photography, Caitlin aims to encourage adoption of sheltered animals. To accomplish her goal and increase the adoption of animals to their forever homes, she will be designing and creating a portfolio of posters with light-hearted slogans that showcase the unique personality and characteristics of each animal.  In the end, she will ultimately have a unique product she will be able to share with shelters, so that they can select posters to hang at their specific locations.  

Riley is a tenth-grade student who is currently completing his personal project as part of the IB MYP.  In addition to having a passion for math since elementary school, Riley has always genuinely cared about helping others.  Throughout numerous life experiences, he has learned that taking action for the good of someone else is often more rewarding than acting in one’s own interest.  His personal project combines the fields of math and philanthropy to explore the effect that one group of students and a unifying cause can have on a community.  This Spring, he plans to establish a charitable math tutoring service where students can receive free help with math from experienced students who are experts in the subject.  Inspired by the many brilliant peers that Riley has worked alongside, he envisions a program that will make a positive impact on the community at its foundation: students.  In order to have an even larger impact on the community, his service will also publicly promote Northville Civic Concern and accept donations to serve Northville families in need.

Olivia is a sophomore who is completing her 10th grade personal project. Her MYP project explores a topic with a personal connection that began during her childhood. Olivia has spent many summers with her grandmother in Kortrijk, Belgium. One of her favorite places to visit there is the beguinage, which was founded in the 13th century. A beguinage is a grouping of houses surrounded by walls, built around a courtyard and church. The residents, beguines, were religious women who lived as a community but did not take religious vows. Living in a beguinage gave them protection and they were economically self-sufficient. Olivia plans to research and write an essay on the historical and social aspects of beguinages and their potential structural application to certain communities in our world today. 

Rohan is currently a member of Student Congress at Northville High School. He strives to put a smile on the faces he meets every day. He finds that friends and hobbies fuel his positive outlook. This year, he saw the personal project as an opportunity to enrich his musical spirit. Inspired by his friends who play instruments, Rohan embarked on his project; to build a ukulele from scratch. Additionally, Rohan plans to produce a short video, that will highlight his construction process, to help pass on his inspiration. Rohan looks forward to playing the uke and spreading happiness as a way to give back to community. 

Maddi is a sophomore student who is completing her 10th grade Personal Project. For the past few years, she has become increasingly interested in working with special effects makeup, and has made a hobby out of morphing herself into various creatures of her own design. She has also worked on-set of two theater group productions in special effects: the Farmington Hills Trinity Church Theater Group in their production, Let's Go to the Movies, and the Harrison High School Theater Group in their production of The Little Mermaid. For her Personal Project, Maddi hopes to complete a full-body SFX creature using prosthetics and airbrushing techniques that she has yet to learn. 

Natalie is a sophomore and a current 4 year member of the Michigan Opera Theatre Children's Chorus.  She also performs with the University of Michigan Women's Chorale as well as her high school choir.  Natalie was born with a cleft lip and palate.  Because of her surgeries, she is able to sing and have a normal life.  She is very thankful for her wonderful family, but realizes that not everyone is as fortunate as her.  For her Personal Project, she has organized and will host a benefit concert for Operation Smile on:

• Saturday, March 18th, 2017 

• First Presbyterian Church of Plymouth (701Church St. in Plymouth, MI)

• 3:00pm to 5:00pm