Hello everyone! School just started and Commack's
technology department is still getting back into the swing of things. Soon will
come more posts about our projects, designs, and more! In the mean time, I just
wanted to talk about how some other engineers and I spent our summer.
Every four years, Commack participates in what is
known as the Lemelson MIT InvenTeams. This competition requires a small,
dedicated group of students. The process runs over the course of approximately
a year until you finally reach the end, which is physically going to MIT. The
whole idea of the competition is to create an invention which will make a change in the world. Whether it is something that is a solution to a
major problem, or your own general creation, the process is totally worth it.
This year, Commack was lucky enough to have eight
truly dedicated students as well as an incredible advisor to spend countless
hours with while working on this project. The other students and I put in time
once a week, every week, during the summer to meet with each other and work on
the most important part of this process; the proposal. The proposal gives all
of the details behind the design, the problem, our solution, and most
importantly, our budget. In the proposal, we had to state what materials we
would need to use, as well as its expense. Our proposal is used as our submission
meaning that if we get in, MIT will send us all the money we need for the
project. After that we get to build the whole thing and then head over to MIT
in June for the actual competition.
This whole competition involves the use of the
Design Process. After brainstorming a lot of ideas and issues in our world, we
came up with a portable, in car solution to wrong-way driving. Approximately
350 people get in wrong-way crashes each year. However, our device can fix
that. Our device will be able to detect signs and will immediately alert you
when you are driving the wrong direction. This device can be used in all car
models. It will be small and compact, but it will do it's purpose. It can be very beneficial and decrease the amount of wrong-way crashes
each year.
Though we cannot
predict what will happen in our future, all we can say is that we worked as
hard as we possibly could on this project already. We have gotten so far and we
are so proud of that accomplishment alone. Working together as a team isn’t always
easy. Agreements, disagreements, different ideas, etc. are all factors that
make group work more complicated. However, our team worked so well together and
made so much progress. I am so thankful to have the opportunity to work with
these people. I am so proud of the success we’ve had already.
Thank you to Mr. Castrogivanni, our advisor, as well as congratulations
to our members on how far they have come:
Jared Becker
Anthony Bisulco
Binoy Daniel
Daniel Lukach
Ashley Cooper
William Claus Jr.
Claire Drotman
Alexa Girimonte
Below is a picture of the hardworking
students as well as our advisor (minus Binoy):
I hope you all enjoyed this post! Hopefully this inspired you to work in a group and maybe come up with your own life-changing invention!
~Ashley
