Windermere Prep students tackle MIT Challenge

Dozens of Windermere Preparatory School middle-schoolers showed off their inventive sides as they presented their creations Dec. 18 and 19 for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Challenge.

The MIT Challenge is an annual program that tasks students with coming up with innovative ways to address real-world problems.

Jamie Schoenberger, who teaches eighth-grade physical science at Windermere Prep, said this is the second year the school’s parent company, Nord Anglia Education, has partnered with MIT to host the MIT Challenge at Windermere Prep. 

“Each year, MIT releases three themed challenges,” Schoenberger said. “Last year’s theme was ‘Navigating Tomorrow’ and dealt with solving the issue of global warming as it pertains to fossil-fuel use in transportation. … The theme for this year is ‘Superheroes: Make Someone Super.’”

The challenge is assigned to the Windermere Prep eighth-graders in place of a traditional final exam for science and language arts. Teams of students — 28 in total — banded together to come up with a wearable prototype device or garment that enhances an individual’s natural abilities to “make them super.” Teams had about three weeks to plan, design and create a pitch for a device that could enhance a user’s abilities. Devices fell under three “paths” or categories: epic identity, medical marvel and super naturals. Students then pitch their products at the end of the three-week period in a presentation modeled after the show “Shark Tank,” Schoenberger said. 

“(Students) could choose path one, where they focus on athletic performance and increasing human performance in the athletic arena,” Schoenberger said. “They could focus on path two, which is medical marvel, where they … (come up with) a device that would ease impairment or improve the quality of life of someone suffering from a disease or disability. Or they could choose path three, where they look to the animal kingdom for superpowers that already exist and figure out a way to get humans to benefit from what nature has designed.”

Leena Masood and Annabelle Kessler chose the medical-marvel path for their invention. They devised an earpiece that plays music, sounds of nature or other sounds to alleviate symptoms of anxiety.

“This is our prototype earpiece that someone who commonly has anxiety attacks would wear,” Kessler said. “You can install the voice of your loved one or your favorite song that calms you down, and you can wear it at all times and play it whenever you want. The main purpose is to comfort you, but our main goals is to, hopefully, cure (someone) of their anxiety if they were to wear it for a while.”

“It’s completely personalized so you can record someone’s voice or a song and tailor it to what helps you most,” Masood said. “Although … you can take medication … medication can have side effects, so it’s not always safe and we wanted to come up with a way that will eliminate the need of medication or therapy.”