Crossroads News
InvenTeam Project Off to a Strong Start
Students provide updates on their Lemelson-MIT grant prototype.
Upper Schoolers on the Lemelson-MIT InvenTeam hosted a mid-grant technical review on Feb. 11 to show progress with and receive feedback on their invention, a home water-usage monitoring device meant to help address California’s drought.
The nine-student team received a $6,500 grant from Lemelson-MIT last fall to create a prototype of their invention, which attaches to water meters to send real-time usage data to a customer’s cell phone via an app.
“People don’t know how much water they’re using,” said 11th-grade team member Sarah Saltzman. “They see a number at the end of a bill and by then it’s too little, too late to actually change their usage.”
The Crossroads team comprises 11th-graders Jacob Brooks, Alex Frye, Emma Blue Kirby and Sarah Saltzman and 12th-graders Andrea De Oliveira, Alex Groenendaal-Jones, August Gross, Alex Pantuck and Jackson Stogel. Math teacher Kelly Castaneda and science teachers Paul Way and Grace Hayek serve as the InvenTeam’s educator supervisors.
The students shared exciting updates about the device’s features at the event. For instance, they used sustainable materials like biodegradable plastics to develop the prototype, and are investigating renewable power sources, such as solar, to power the device.
The water monitor becomes more power-efficient over time, is programmable to suit users’ preferences and has a modular design, allowing a user to replace components in the event that they malfunction. Students used a 3-D printer to design and print all the prototype’s parts.
Following the presentation, guests had the chance to interact with the team and displays at stations throughout the Science Education & Research Facility covering communication, technical, sustainability and financial aspects of the invention.
Attendees included Crossroads School co-founder Rhoda Makoff; Rob Lemelson, co-vice president and secretary of The Lemelson Foundation, which funds the grant that MIT’s School of Engineering administers; and his son Noah, who graduated from Crossroads in 2010.
“You guys can absolutely go into business. I’ve seen hundreds of these ideas over the years and this is really one of the very best,” Rob remarked to the InvenTeam. “It addresses a really important need. ... This is a really gratifying moment to come back to Crossroads, to feel this kind of connection and see all the work that you’re doing.”
