Student Inventors

Drew Charter School team receives invention grant for hot car monitor

A group of junior and senior students at East Lake’s Charles R. Drew Senior Academy has been selected to receive the Lemelson-MIT InvenTeam Grant, a $10,000 award to be used for inventing technological solutions to real-world problems. Four of the students are part of Drew Senior Academy’s inaugural senior class.

Drew Charter is one of only 15 schools nationwide to receive the InvenTeam Grant and the only school in Georgia to receive it.

Beth White, an engineering teacher at Drew, submitted the application for the grant expressing Drew’s interest in a year-long invention project and noting the ability of her students to identify and solve real-world problems.

From that application, White was chosen as a Lemelson-MIT Excite Award recipient, earning her an all-expense paid trip to EurekaFest earlier this year and enabling Drew Design students to submit the final application for the grant.

Now as a Lemelson-MIT InvenTeam, the Drew Design team will use the next several months to concept, design and build its invention – a device used to monitor the backseat of an automobile for child and/or pet presence.

“Being selected as an InvenTeam, and creating an invention from soup to nuts will undoubtedly have a huge impact on these students,” said White. “They have already learned so much through the framework that Lemelson-MIT has provided, and now we are just getting started.”

In June 2017, White and Drew’s InvenTeam will travel to Cambridge, Massachusetts, for EurekaFest where they will join other teams to present and showcase their prototypes. Lemelson-MIT student prize-winners, MIT faculty and other InvenTeams will offer feedback at the event.

“This group of students has worked very hard to be selected, and I can’t wait to see them persist through the challenges of creating a final product that has the potential to save lives, something they are very passionate about,” White said.