November Update

Mira Loma’s BioEngineering club is so stoked to be named a Lemelson-MIT InvenTeamⓇ for 2022-2023 and to work towards developing a technical solution for protecting dog paws from the blistering California heat. 

The month of November was a busy month for us, and we have lots of exciting news to share!

Meeting Recaps

The core team has now met up at least four times to work on finalizing a plan for our design. At our first meeting, we began identifying ideas and problem areas with the initial design on a whiteboard, a process that continued into our second meeting on Figma. Identifying these problem areas led to a discussion on our product design and whether it should be altered. The decision to shift the design into something new is a decision our entire team voted on and it passed. This change is one that we hope will help us achieve our goal of protecting dog paws even more than before. 

Over the course of our first few meetings, we also began dividing into smaller teams in order to focus on delegating tasks and getting more work done. We’ve started using Slack for team communication and Trello for task assignments. Both platforms helped keep everyone up to date as each team worked during Thanksgiving Break, fleshing out ideas and plans for the upcoming month. 

Team Leads & Progress: 

Project Management Lead: Nora R.

Nora is managing Slack and Trello for the team as well as drafting meeting agendas and coordinating with each team lead to maximize our productivity and keep everyone on track. 

Technical Lead: Rylan R.

We’ve split up the technical team into two smaller subgroups: Software and Hardware. 

The hardware team has developed a comprehensive list of which parts are needed and hopes to begin ordering parts within the next week. Meanwhile, the software team is mapping out the layout and features for the app that goes along with our product and planning for the prototyping phase. 

Communications Lead: Aniruddh M.

Our communications team was hard at work developing a plan for social media outreach and drafting the blog post you read now. They will also begin initiating outreach with local news stations and organizations to spread awareness of our efforts and seek mentors from the community. 

Sustainability Lead: Shreya S.

The sustainability team will be working towards earning CSDA certification which will help us in analyzing the prototype lifecycle and creating the most sustainable invention possible. 

Financial Lead: Aditya A.

The financial team has drafted a very thorough budget for our project, providing an outline for future spending. 

Teacher Mentors 

Us students are certainly hard at work but we would not be able to do this without our incredible teacher mentors, Mr. Canet and Ms. Kelly, who have dedicated extra time outside of school towards supervising and overseeing team efforts. 

We are also excited to start working with our Lemelson-MIT assigned mentor, Mark Westlake, an Honors Physics teacher at Saint Thomas Academy in Mendota Heights, Minnesota. His expertise will provide an extra layer of insight into our design and our efforts. 

Upcoming Plans

As stated above, we intend to begin ordering the technical components of our design in order to begin developing our first prototype. We are also focusing on doing media outreach and contacting mentors in our local community for their expertise and advice as well. 

Our main goal for December is to solidify our design and create our first, low-fidelity prototype of our product. 

If you would like to follow our progress or reach out, you can find us on:

Instagram: @mlhsinventeam 

Twitter: @mlhsinventeam 

Email: mlhsbioengineering@gmail.com