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South Fayette students show off invention at World Maker Faire

By Jacob Calvin Meyer staff Writer Jmeyer@thealmanac.Net 4 min read
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South Fayette High School students started a project to help combat the opioid epidemic by creating a pill dispenser that regulates how much and how often it releases pills, called LockRx.

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What started as a school project to win a regional award has since turned into a trip to New York City with the hope of saving lives.

A year ago, a group of South Fayette High School students started a project to help combat the opioid epidemic by creating a pill dispenser that regulates how much and how often it releases pills, called LockRx.

The group worked all school year on the device, winning the regional Governor’s Pennsylvania STEM Competition and the Digital Promise filmMaker Challenge. By winning the filmMaker challenge with a video they created, the group won a trip to the World Maker Faire in New York from Sept. 22-25.

“I think now more than ever we can really see this isn’t just any old school project,” said senior Michael Kugler, the project’s lead engineer.

For Jim Hausman, the project’s adviser, the trip was the culmination of a year’s hard work from his students.

“I think to me from the very beginning we spent a lot of time crafting our vision for what we wanted this to be and that vision has seen us through,” he said. “For me, as an educator, it has really hammered home the importance of having an end goal in mind and then just sticking together. You become like a family in many ways; you develop really close relationships with these kids…We learned how to work as a very effective unit this year because we all shared that same vision. When people share that unique goal in mind, you can achieve really wonderful things.”

Thousands of people flock from all over the U.S. and the world to the Maker Faire, which is an annual event created by “Make” magazine to promote innovators, engineers, technology enthusiasts, educators and many other people known as “makers.”

“I think it was a little bit more than we expected. It was really neat to see all the different inventions and makers at this place,” said senior Chris Rodi, an engineer for LockRx. “It was a great feeling knowing we were a part of it, too.”

The group also toured New York City, visiting the World Trade Center, the 9/11 Memorial, Rockefeller Center, Central Park and several other landmarks.

Separate tents were set up for the different parts of the Maker Faire. The LockRx group gave a 10-minute presentation, followed by answering about 15 minutes of questions from the audience at the Education Stage.

“I think for the presentation it was more geared towards talking to educators, sharing the story of our journey, the process and the success we’ve had to promote our process,” Kugler said.

The group went to the other tents and talked with the other makers and shared ideas and stories about their projects.

“I think it was cool to see so many people from so many walks of life,” Kugler said. “We’d go and see them and tell them that we’re makers, too, and connect on that level and see what everyone was doing.”

“We made sure we went to every single booth, because we were so intrigued in what everyone was doing and there were some things that were so interesting,” said sophomore Suraj Bokil, the project’s programmer.

Hausman said the opportunity to see his students be motivated at the Maker Faire was rewarding.

“For me, as a teacher, I love those moments most where you see that light bulb or that energy in a student’s body language and in their words and their eyes,” Hausman said. “Watching these young guys this weekend get so excited and that sense of wonder, as a teacher, you can’t ask for more than that because that’s what learning is all about.”

The Maker Faire wasn’t the end of the LockRx project, though. If anything, the Maker Faire encouraged the students to continue with their plans for the future of LockRx.

“I think the Maker Faire really solidified that,” said junior Josh Milteer, LockRx’s media coordinator. “Showing how we started in a room just putting ideas on a board and then we ended up on a stage in New York presenting to a bunch of interesting people was incredible.”

Kugler said the team submitted a patent pending application over the summer and is currently in the process of completing the full patent.

The group wants to eventually attract investors and take the product to market, something that everyone in the group knows is no small task.

“At this point, we’re all committed to this project. It’s more than this high school project,” Bokil said. “We want to take this to market to save lives.”

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