ALUMNI BRIEFS Alumni Host Students at Colleges This past spring, two groups of Middle School students were hosted by our alumni for tours of their college campuses. In March, a group of 7th- and 8th-graders on a spring break history trip to Washington, D.C. (see story pg. 27) toured Georgetown University with hosts Julia Najafi (Class of 2011), Shannon Manley ‘11, and Nimra Khan ‘12. In May, the 7th grade’s class trip to Boston took them to Harvard, where alums Nicole Bassoff ’12, Zoe Simon ’12, Danielle Lee ’12, and Rachel Chanen ’11 showed off their campus. Said 7th-grade student Jordan Merkel, “I thought it was really cool to see how students that were in our seats
Ben Mattinson ’12 Goes to the White House Ben Mattinson ’12, winner of the 2012 FIRST Future Innovator Award, was invited by President Barack Obama to attend the 3rd Annual Science Fair held at the White House in April. Each year about 100 inventors from elementary school through high school across the U.S. are invited to attend the Science Fair. Many of these students have already won national awards.
just a couple years ago are now going to a great school.” Here (above) those alumnae are pictured along with 7th-grade teachers (from left) Katie McKean, Chris Palmer, Michele Huskey, Jerry Cook, and Liz Olson.
The EyeWriterB 2.1 is based on earlier versions of software that lacked much of the functionality that patients needed. Ben’s goal was to make it possible for patients to use most aspects of the computer, such as word processing or browsing the Internet, by using their eyes to control the computer. He also wanted to make it more affordable. See the product working at http://tinyurl.com/eyewriterb21.
At the White House, Ben had the opportunity to meet with other student inventors and talk about his invention. The President later toured the Science Fair and discussed the different projects with several of the students. They were then all invited into the East Room where the President addressed them and thanked them, their teachers, mentors, and parents for their achievements. “It was an incredible honor to be invited,” said Ben. “It was amazing to see the President and meet many of the other students to see what incredible things they had accomplished. This was truly a trip of a lifetime.” Ben, a freshman at MIT, is one of the founding members of the PCDS Blue Tide Robotics team. He won the FIRST Future Innovator Award sponsored by the Abbott Fund for his work on an eye-tracking system that allows people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) to use eye movements to control a computer mouse and keyboard. Ben first heard about the concept from Dr. Alan Pitt of the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix and he worked with Dr. Suraj Muley, also from Barrow. With the aid of their feedback, he developed the EyeWriterB 2.1, an improved version of an existing open source eye-tracking system called the EyeWriter.
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