INDIANAPOLIS — Imagine an entire home complete with technology allowing more seniors to live independently. That's the inspiration behind an award-winning project, all designed by a group of IPS middle school girls.
“It counteracts the cost of a nursing home, and it enables them to live in their own homes. It uses technology to help them stay safe,” seventh grader Caitlin Schmucker said.
Schmucker was part of a team with three other middle school girls at Cold Spring School, a K-8 environmental science school that also focuses on STEM.
The girls designed a model smart home for seniors using tools they learned in the classroom, like coding and design.
“I helped with the oven sensors,” Emma Larcom, a sixth grader on the team, said. “So if they leave the oven on, it would make this annoying noise. So they have to come and shut it off.”
“I helped design the house and put the furniture in there and I also worked on some of the sensors,” Malak Shugon, who’s in the seventh grade, added.
The four students took what they learned in the classroom to find solutions to real-world problems.
The home included things like pressure sensors to control lighting for safety, flex sensors to alert family members about refrigerator use, and medication monitoring systems to track daily dosages.
“We have great grandparents in nursing homes so we wanted to execute this idea to show that in the future, this can actually be something that can happen,” Schmucker said.
The group of girls spent months on the project using their skills in science, technology, engineering, art, and math.
“It felt very accomplishing when we were able to finish every detail of it and knowing that even if something is malfunctioning every now and then, we got it done,” eighth grader Edith Wise told WRTV.
“The kids learned basic skills about using a glow forge, using multiple kinds of resign, and 3D printers,” Computer Science teacher Genevieve Mcleish-Petty, who helped facilitate the student-led project, said. “They stayed after school multiple days instead of going home so that they could work together.”
The girls' hard work and dedication earned them first place in the Middle School Division of the CSforGood competition, hosted by Nextech at the Indiana Statehouse on Dec. 4.
“I think it is very important to empower girls in STEM and show them they can be what they want to be, they don’t have to follow what everyone else tells them to do,” Schmucker said.
The students are also in their school’s Girls Who Code club.
They each received $200 for their win at the statehouse. The school was also awarded a $1,000 technology grant
