Willow Springs HS competes at Make48

Three Willow Springs High School students are headed to national competition after beating six other school to win the state-level trophy at Make48.  

 

The students, Nolan Perkins, Maddie Poor and Seth Wake, competing under the name "Innovation Hall Bears" spent Friday, Feb 2., and their Saturday and Sunday prototyping a brand-new invention in response to a prompt to "improve the stadium experience." Throughout the forty-eight hour competition, the students created a physical prototype of their invention, mocked up a phone application, shot a promotional video and compiled the necessary information to present a professional sales-pitch to a panel of judges including a representative from Sporting Kansas City and the Project Lead the Way Program.

 

The students were chosen as representatives of the school's new Career Technical Center, Innovation Hall. Each student represented a different part of the CTE newly offered programs - Nolan Perkins from Bear Media, Maddie Poor from Business Entrepreneurship, and Seth Wake from Project Lead the Way Engineering. The trio traveled to Kansas City with team leader Matt Knapp and sponsor Sabrina Lee to compete at Make48 on the UMKC campus in an invention competition against six other schools from across the state.

 

Throughout the competition, the students worked with industry professionals to craft parts from industrial equipment that included CNC routers and milling machines, laser cutters and other fabrication tools.

 

They worked tirelessly for as much as nineteen hours per day to perfect their product and pitch, and the work paid off when they won the competition's top prize and became state champions. The team brought home a custom-made trophy crafted in the UMKC Maker Space and a $2,000 cash prize.

 

Their win cements their chance at the national competition to be held in November. Make48 is a televised innovation competition, and the event was filmed for the first two episodes of their eight season. This fall, the episodes will air on Roku Channel in their This Old House program as well as on YouTube.