District News
Saratoga Springs High School receives national invention grant
Gardeners could see bigger blooms and juicier tomatoes as a
result of an invention under development by students at Saratoga
Springs High School with funding from the prestigious
Lemelson-MIT InvenTeams program.
The high school is one of 16 nationwide this year – and the only
one ever in upstate New York – to be awarded a Lemelson-MIT
grant, which will provide up to $10,000 for development of an
intriguing device featuring extensive data on soil conditions.
The information will help gardeners decide which plants could
thrive – and which might wither – in their own patch of ground.
Technology teacher Michael Gallagher, who submitted the winning
application last spring and learned of the award this month,
said 14 seniors in his Engineering, Design and Development
course are already hard at work on the project. They’ll develop
it over the next eight months in preparation for showcasing
their invention before an audience of thousands in the spring at
the InvenTeams Odyssey at MIT in Cambridge, Mass. The event will
be part of the Lemelson-MIT Program’s EurekaFest, which brings
together prominent inventors, students and the Greater Boson
community for a weeklong celebration of the inventive spirit.
Gallagher said the students are developing a prototype device
that will be placed in soil, where a probe will measure
variables such as sunlight, moisture, and acidity. The students
will also develop computer software with a database that can be
linked to their invention, matching data on soil conditions to
information about plants best suited for that environment. While
there are products on the market that measure individual soil
variables, there’s nothing currently available offering the
breadth and depth they hope to achieve.
“The kids are really excited to be involved in this project,”
Gallagher said. “In the engineering world, this program is as
big as it gets.”
Gallagher said Saratoga Springs also has the distinction of
being the first Project Lead the Way school to ever be selected
for the Lemelson-MIT program, which began in 1994. Project Lead
the Way is a national pre-engineering program that involves
hundreds of Saratoga students in a series of five courses
culminating in the capstone Engineering, Design and Development
class.
Gallagher said it’s possible the project could continue beyond
the current school year because schools can apply for smaller
matching grants to sustain interest in inventions in future
years.
Jerome H. Lemelson, one of the world’s most prolific inventors,
and his wife, Dorothy, founded the Lemelson-MIT program.