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MCCTC students excel at state contest
By Denise Dick
CANFIELD
A latch to keep school-bus windows from sliding, a device to monitor glucose levels internally, a wristband inhaler and a process to detect antibodies – they’re all the concepts by Mahoning County Career and Technical Center students that earned them cash at the Believe in Ohio competition.
Seniors Josie Brown of South Range, Morgan Hardy of West Branch, Marisa Silvestri of Austintown, Kristen Wade of Canfield, Taylor Catri-Eakes of Canfield, Paige Lepowsky of Canfield, Kelly Lesnak of Campbell and Seraeah Johnson of Lowellville – all students in Tom Slaven’s biotechnology class at the school – won the awards at the competition last month.
The awards for their entries total $22,500.
Believe in Ohio is a statewide science, technology, engineering and mathematics education contest by the Ohio Academy of Excellence. Students had to compete and score well at regional competitions to advance to state.
Morgan and Josie won first place, and $10,000, for their idea of a bus-window latch that incorporates a tongue- and-groove design to prevent slipping.
“When the bus hits potholes, the tortional vibration causes the windows to slip,” Morgan explained of the traditional school-bus window design. “That can get pretty cold in the winter time.”
Their entry was in the advanced-materials category.
Walter Baber, MCCTC’s engineering instructor, helped Josie and Morgan with the 3-D printing of their design.
Working on the project made Morgan reconsider her career plans. She had been planning to pursue a degree in chemistry but wants to study engineering instead.
All of the MCCTC students who participated in the state competition did so as teams.
Courtney Cyrus, a junior at Springfield High School, competed as an individual, winning $2,500 for her rust-proof shower rod, a project she created for teacher Susan Dunn’s chemistry class.
Kelly and Seraeah’s entry was in the medical-devices category. They won third place for their wristband inhaler idea.
It would prevent asthmatics from having to carry an inhaler, Seraeah said.
Kelly said the judges pointed out that it’s the wristband portion of the idea that makes it marketable. It has other uses, too.
“They said we should get a patent,” Kelly said. “It could be used to hold insulin, too. They said the wristband would make the money.”
Marisa and Kristen won second place for their antigen-specific nanoparticles in the cellular, molecular, genomic, pharmaceutical and regenerative medicine category.
Their process used charcoal rather than the more- expensive material usually used in the process, Marisa said.
Kristen said it has security applications.
“It could pick up chemicals used to make a bomb,” she said.
Taylor and Paige won second place and $5,000 in the medical-devices category. Their idea was for a device implanted in a diabetic person to detect blood-glucose levels. It would replace the need for diabetics to test their blood.
Slaven is happy with his students’ showing at the competition.
“Especially with this being the first year, we’re very pleased,” he said.