Valley girls get taste of building high-tech businesses at America Makes camp

YOUNGSTOWN

Despite their young age, Sarah Hartwig and Maria Reichard, both 10, are budding entrepreneurs.

The two girls, both students at Valley Christian Schools’ Lewis Center, signed up for the school’s girls-only 3-D camp this week at America Makes.

Eight middle school girls from six Mahoning Valley schools signed up for the five-day camp led by Ashley Martof, a Youngstown State University graduate student. It covered 3-D printing, additive manufacturing and entrepreneurship.

“I love 3-D printing – we have a 3-D printing club at our school,” said Sarah, who will be in fifth-grade next school year.

“I wanted to learn about 3-D printing,” said Maria, a sixth-grader.

In one exercise, each girl designed a product to meet a need and developed a business plan for it, Martof said.

Maria’s product is animal figurines with facts about each printed right on the animal.

“They can play with it and learn more about it,” she explained.

Sarah’s product is a coffee mug with a heating element to keep hot drinks hot.

Together the two girls envision many businesses.

In Cats and Cupcakes, they plan a shop to sell healthy cupcakes for cats and their owners.

“No dogs allowed in,” Maria said.

Read more about them and the other participants in Saturday's Viondicator or on Vindy.com.