When Tuscarora High junior Seibah Sulemana lived in Ghana, West Africa, his family faced the challenge of gathering water for cooking, cleaning and drinking.
There were no faucets or pipes.
Instead, families needed to transport water from the closest source, using buckets balanced on their heads.
“It gave me a headache,” Seibah said of the daily chore taken on by millions of Africans. “But I had no choice.”
Seibah, now living in Frederick, is trying to change all that. He is part of a team comprised of FCPS Career and Technology Center students who are creating an improved water transport system for rural Africa. Check out reporter Scott Broom's WUSA 9 story about the team.
The students, enrolled in Phil Arnold’s CAD engineering course at the Career & Tech Center, are finalists in the Lemelson-MIT InvenTeams competition. Just 35 teams nationwide were selected as finalists. Of those, 15 will be picked to invent technological solutions to real-world problems and then visit MIT to present them.
The Career & Tech Center students are hoping to become the first FCPS team ever to be picked. The students have created an enhanced Hippo Water Roller that can assist in water transport.
Here is a photo of the CTC engineering team and a list of team members:
Invention Team
| Student | School | Project role |
|---|---|---|
| Brittainy Sechler | Frederick High | Project Manager |
| Allen Hitchcock | Oakdale High | Communications Manager |
| Mark Goff | Catoctin High | Senior Design Engineer |
| Sean McGaughey | Oakdale High | Senior Design Engineer |
| Meredith Bertulaitis | Middletown High | System Design/Test Engineer |
| August Shrader | Middletown High | System Test Engineer |
| Seibah Sulemana | Tuscarora High | Design and Test Analyst |
| Gabriella Punturiero | Urbana High | Multimedia/Video Production |
| Luis Lopez-Velasco | Tuscarora High | Wood Fabrication |
| Michael Barnes | Metal Fabrication | Metal Fabrication |
| Angel Mallery | Brunswick High | Physiology Analyst |
Rather than balancing buckets on their heads, Africans can push more significant amounts of water using a Hippo Water Roller, a contraption with some wheelbarrow characteristics. The CTC students would create a Hippo Water Roller with a brake and improved controls for improved transport in rough terrain or hilly areas.
In Africa and Asia, more than 741 million people lack daily access to fresh water.
“We wanted to improve the lives of people by improving a device that has already dramatically helped so many,” Brittainy said.
The students all have an interest in engineering and hail from eight different FCPS high schools.
Oakdale High senior Sean McGaughey, the varsity starting quarterback for the football team, said this project sparked an interest in his desire to become an engineer.
Team member Meredith Bertulaitis said she hopes to become an engineer one day and help others.
The team presented their project plan at a FCPS Business Breakfast at the Career & Tech Center Sept. 1. The event was attended by education and business leaders from throughout the community. The students, dressed in business attire, gave a professional presentation and are clearly enthusiastic about the project.
“They are our problem solvers of the future,” Arnold said, “and they want to help the world today.”