They don’t have their driver’s licenses yet, but John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science seniors Thano Karkaetedes, Ophilia Anis and Calvin Kwan know that cars and cellphones don’t mix.
“Having an older sister that drives, she’s on her phone A LOT,” Karkaetedes said, laughing. “But if we take phones out of the picture, then most distracted driving will be gone.”
So, on Wednesday, the trio walked from their school in Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood to Northeastern University’s EXP Makerspace to refine their box, which locks a phone away when a car is in motion.
“We don’t have a lot of this stuff — or this stuff in quantities that we can access as students — that they have here,” Karkaetedes said, surveying the makerspace equipment. “They definitely have a lot of materials you wouldn’t find in a typical high school.”
The students are in the engineering design and development course at O’Bryant and, along with their classmates, have visited the EXP Makerspace throughout the year. There, they have received support from Northeastern students and staff as they work on developing a prototype to solve a real-world engineering problem.
This is the second year of the partnership, which arose from conversations about how the university and its EXP complex could support the Boston public schools.
“We have a makerspace but thought a partnership with Northeastern’s makerspace would give us access to some materials we may not have so that the students are not limited in their projects,” said Darcel Hunt-Finegold, assistant headmaster at O’Bryant. “Here they can take their imagination to wherever they want it to go.”
In addition, the students are exposed to a college campus, enabling them to experience what it means to use a college space, interact with college students and more.
“As a university that focuses on innovation and experiential learning, it only made sense to work with these O’Bryant students and find a way to lift up their brilliant ideas that may one day change the world,” said Chimel Idiokitas, assistant vice president for community relations in the university’s Office of City and Community Engagement.
O’Bryant students Jared Perkins and Chinaza Uyanwune are developing what the former describes as a “giant dehumidifier in a box,” so that footballs and other balls used in sports don’t get degraded by moisture. A sensor triggers fans that are embedded in the sides of the acrylic cube when the humidity gets too high.“The makerspace helped us really bring the concept to life,” said Perkins as Uyanwune and makerspace manager Aya Aragon used the laser cutter. “We have basically everything we need.”
Meanwhile, back at the distracted driving solution, students were adding a transparent plastic panel to one side of the latest prototype of their phone holder.
“If you keep phones out of driving, that’s great, but what if your navigation is on there, too?” asked Anis.
Paul Carson, senior makerspace manager, said that it’s been fun to see the students solve such problems.
It gives him hope for the future.
“It tells me we’re going to see every bit as many interesting students doing cool projects in the next generation,” Carson said.