MoWest welcomes SJSD student finalists at Make48 competition
ST. JOSEPH, Mo. (KQTV)-- Missouri Western State University welcomed the inaugural Make48 finalists from the St. Joseph School District on Wednesday.
The student teams shared videos of their project pitches and walked judges through their research which was focused on solving real-world problems.
For Sitina Abbl, a senior at Central High School and a member of one of the finalist teams, it was her first time presenting in front of a crowd.
“I am a little nervous but I know this will be a good experience presenting the project since it will help the work that line workers do,” Abbl said.
Abbl and her teammate designed an alternative toolbox aimed at making life easier for line workers—helping them carry tools more comfortably and reducing physical strain on the job.
She said research showed the current system belt line workers user to carry their equipment can lead to serious back pain.
“We started working on this pretty much since the second semester started and my biggest takeaway was learning about how risky their jobs are which I didn’t know how unsafe it was before,” Abbl said.
Her teammate, Ayden Flannery, shared how he hopes this experience might even help him earn a scholarship for college.
For him, one of the biggest takeaways has been learning how to work as part of a team—supporting each other and staying united, especially in stressful situations.
“She was a very big help which i am a huge fan of. My product is like a bench that we can hang outside of crane trucks because the line workers don’t have much room to work with,” Flannery said.
He was looking forward to see how the judges react to these products and if they find these useful enough to help line workers.
One of those judges, Tyler Newman, a lineman from Evergy, encouraged all the finalists by saying that every idea has value.
He said he’s impressed by how many creative ideas students come up with and he’s looking forward to seeing what they’ve created.
“There are a lot of kids out there who have a lot of brilliant ideas that I would have never thought of and I am very excited to see what they have and what they came up with,” Newman.
When asked about the importance of the job, Newman didn’t hesitate to call it critical.
“Our job is to maintain and build new power lines and when storms come in, the lights go out and it is our jobs to get the light back on as quick and safe as possible,” Newman said.
He added how he’s especially interested in hearing fresh perspectives from students, since they often bring ideas that people in the industry might overlook.
At the end of the competition, Spring Garden Middle School was announced as the winner. The final competition is set to take place this summer in Wisconsin.
