Bring In The New Year

Our engineering team presents a working prototype in motion.

A new year, a new perspective! This project has flown by fast. We are excited to continue to work on our invention. We have been diligently working to perfect our prototype. We were invited to the City of Oakland Park’s December 6th City Commission meeting at City Hall where we were honored  for receiving the Lemelson-MIT InvenTeams Grant. We were given a certificate and had a chance to take pictures with the Mayor, the City Commissioners, the City Manager, and the Director of Parks and Recreation. Our team also had the amazing opportunity to raise money. We raised money by selling pizza, snacks, and beverages for an event called “Debate Night” that took place at our school.

Thank you to the City of Oakland Park for honoring us!

Working hard at Debate Night!

All sections of the team have been working constantly to make all processes run smoothly and get the bugs out before the new year. On December 15th, the engineering team showcased the current prototype in our workstation after school. A few teachers, an administrator and a parent were in attendance. This was an opportunity for the engineers to practice public speaking about the project and receive feedback from other people. The engineering team took note of what else they could research as well. The audience was very intrigued and cannot wait to see our progress at the Mid-Grant Technical Review.

The engineering team gave an in-depth presentation, our audience was fascinated!

The finance and communications teams have worked together to create an outline of a sponsor letter while brainstorming ideas of fundraising events. Sadly, we cannot do the poinsettia sale anymore. Yet, we came up with a fascinating idea! We hope to have a gala featuring innovative segments for students to participate in. Examples of these segments would include fashion, sports, and -of course- engineering. Our gala will be called Invent Event! We look forward to a positive response from this event, not only fundraising for our team, but also educating students in unique ways.

In December, the engineering team focused on researching water movement and the functionality of motors. The engineering team also focused on what materials are needed. The finance team continues to make purchases and communicate with the engineering team to find out what materials are needed. The communications team has created an informative powerpoint on mosquitoes, which they will present once we return from winter break. The communications team has also created a list of possible news stations to contact and began creating an outline for promotional flyers for the Mid-Grant Technical Review.

Wow! Look at how fast one of our motors moved at the engineering team's presentation!

In this new year, we look forward to testing our prototype, reiterating to get closer to our final project. We hope to have our real project formed. The engineering team will be communicating more with the finance team to order materials such as Arduino kits. The finance and communications teams will work on planning the gala, Invent Event. The finance team is assuring that over 45% of the budget will be used. The communications team will also set a goal of contacting 15 potential sponsors by the end of January. The administrative lead will be working with communications to create powerpoint presentations regarding the elevator speech, key messages, and safety for the entire team. Our overall goal is to by mid January be working on the final design. We will also be working to procure sponsors and fundraiser extensively to help pay for the trip to Eurekafest in June. 

The Northeast High School InvenTeam hopes everyone had a safe and wonderful holiday season!