ELKHART LAKE, Wis. — Elkhart Lake is a small community making a huge impact.
A group of about 10 middle schoolers, involved in their Tech Garage club, just earned a major title in the Samsung STEM competition, Solve For Tomorrow.
Students in grades 6-12 can participate.
The competition empowers them to practice STEM to create innovative solutions addressing critical issues in their local communities.
“There was a gap and we were talking about something that seemed like it would be interesting and cool for the students,” said Tech Garage lead Josh Fogarty.
The Elkhart Lake-Glenbeulah kids came up with an invention that would keep their home lake in pristine condition.
"Elkhart is a beautiful resort city and we want it to stay that way,” said 8th-grader Jocelyn Fogarty.
"We sometimes see trash floating around so we were inspired to make Elkhart blue again,” added 5th-grader AJ Tegen. “We don’t want our wildlife to be unhealthy.”
The contraption would operate like a Roomba vacuum but on water instead of a hard surface.
"And it'll go around the edge of the lake, picking up most floating trash,” explained 5th-grader Lydia Finkel.
The group plans to add a camera on top to track what and how much the barrels collect.
With this innovative idea, the group won the competition for the state of Wisconsin and a $12,000 tech prize package.
Watch: Elkhart Lake Middle School students win Samsung STEM competition for Wisconsin
"I think we were all pretty excited and surprised when we got the notice,” Josh said, noting that this was the first year the school entered Solve For Tomorrow.
Jocelyn and Tegen found out about the win a couple of days ago, but I had the honor of delivering the happy news to Finkel.
"I didn't know until now and so I'm pretty excited that we won,” she said, smiling.
The idea is solid. Now they must build the robotic garbage collector and resubmit for the next phase of the competition.
The students’ sights are set on big goals. Tegen put it best.
"To win it all and overall just to help Elkhart."
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