Grasso Invention Team, One of Only 16 in Nation, Off to MIT!

Want proof that Groton students are among the best and the brightest in the nation? Read on.

A team of student inventors from Ella T. Grasso Southeastern Technical High School, one of only 16 high schools nationwide selected to receive a $6,500 Lemelson-MIT InvenTeam grant in the 2012-2013 school year, recently completed its compost water heating system. This compost water heating system will be able to provide continuous heat to a small greenhouse or small home. Because compost piles stop producing the heat necessary to service such space as they mature, multiple compost heating units will be incorporated into one system, where their life-cycles will be staggered such that heat will constantly be provided to the space. The unit will be inexpensive with the compost being essentially free, and will be able to be incorporated easily into any heat radiating system.

Patch first met the team last November.

At the time, team member Catrina Nowakowski, 17, told Patch she first got the idea for the heating system after a winter’s walk with her father in their Mystic backyard. Nowakowski discovered that snow never piles on the compost heaps because, as she said, then, there’s heat underneath; “It’s heat that’s just going out into the air. It’s something you can harness.”

The Grasso InvenTeam will travel to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA to exhibit and demonstrate its invention at the InvenTeams Showcase during EurekaFest, a multi-day celebration of the inventive spirit, on Friday, June 21. EurekaFest is an annual event presented by the Lemelson-MIT Program, a nonprofit organization at MIT that inspires youth to pursue creative lives and careers through invention.

EurekaFest empowers a legacy of inventors through activities that honor role models and encourage creativity and problem solving. The festivities will also provide the Grasso InvenTeam with the opportunity to meet fellow student inventors from across the country, past and present Lemelson-MIT Program award winners, MIT alumni and staff and leaders in the science, technology and engineering communities.

“The InvenTeam high school grants initiative represents the future,” said Leigh Estabrooks, invention education officer from the Lemelson-MIT Program. “We place an emphasis on STEM-focused projects to foster interest in these fields among youth. With InvenTeams, our primary goal is to develop high school students’ passion for invention, in turn inspiring them to consider careers in science, technology, engineering or math.”

During the InvenTeams Showcase, the Grasso InvenTeam, led by Larry Fritch, Department Head of Biosciences and Environmental Technology and Jason White, Graduate Student in Chemical Engineering at the University of Connecticut, will join a community of inventors. In addition to discussing its research and design processes and showcasing its invention, the Grasso InvenTeam will gather feedback to advance its prototype.

On Saturday, June 22 , the InvenTeams will participate in closing EurekaFest activities at the Museum of Science, Boston. The Grasso InvenTeam students will join more than 200 high school students from across the country, along with the general public, in hands-on invention activities.

More information about Lemelson-MIT InvenTeams is available at http://web.mit.edu/inventeams, and a detailed schedule of EurekaFest can be found at http://web.mit.edu/invent/eurekafest.html

ABOUT THE LEMELSON-MIT PROGRAM

Celebrating innovation, inspiring youth

The Lemelson-MIT Program celebrates outstanding innovators and inspires young people to pursue creative lives and careers through invention.

Jerome H. Lemelson, one of U.S. history’s most prolific inventors, and his wife Dorothy founded the Lemelson-MIT Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1994. It is funded by The Lemelson Foundation and administered by the School of Engineering. The Foundation sparks, sustains and celebrates innovation and the inventive spirit. It supports projects in the U.S. and developing countries that nurture innovators and unleash invention to advance economic, social and environmentally sustainable development. To date The Lemelson Foundation has donated or committed more than U.S. $150 million in support of its mission. http://web.mit.edu/invent/