The high school students presented their capstone engineering projects that they have been working on this past year.  The projects are based on the Arduino microcontroller platform and incorporate aspects of computer programming, electrical engineering, and mechanical engineering.  As engineering and entrepreneurship are closely related, the students also prepared business plans for how their projects could be further developed.  The projects were divided into four categories based on their subject area and the highest scoring projects won 1^st and 2^nd place in each category.  Additionally, the highest scoring projects in the areas of business, engineering, and presentation won special awards.  

The winners were:

Biomedical Engineering and Healthcare

o   1^st place: WheelAwake by Batsheva Rosskamm, Rivka Lerner, and Tamar Singman of Bais Yaakov (10^th Grade).  WheelAwake is a steering wheel cover designed to combat driver exhaustion by alerting drivers who are falling asleep and waking them up.

o   2^nd place: Posture Perfect by Naomi Prero, Neshama Luxenberg, and Devora Koshkarman of Bnos Yisroel (10^th Grade).  Posture Perfect is a shirt that alerts the wearer when they have bad posture, incentivizing them to have proper posture and alleviate chronic back pain.

Digital Communication and Processing

o   1^st place: Just In Time by Elana Openden, Tali Ohsie, and Esther Rabinowitz of Bais Yaakov (10^th Grade).  Just In Time is a watch with a safety button which, when pressed, sends continuously updated GPS coordinates in a text message to an emergency contact; these text messages only stop being sent when the wearer scans their fingerprint.

o   2^nd place: FastTrack by Menucha Rooshanshad, Sara Leeba Caplan, and Elisheva Sara Steiner of Bnos Yisroel (9^th Grade).  FastTrack is a tracker unit that uses RFID technology to help librarians locate misplaced books in a library.

Embedded Systems

o   1^st place: Blinky by Esther Gholian, Maya Herman, and Raichel Oshinsky of Bais Yaakov (10^th Grade).  Blinky is a smart pacifier: when a baby cries it lights up so that the baby can find it and then it plays a lullaby to soothe the baby; it also doubles as a baby monitor, transmitting to a standard radio alarm clock so that parents can hear their baby.

o   2^nd place: H.C.D. © by Zechariah Zaslow, Malkiel Shmidman, Pinny Turner, Moshe Lichtman, and Yitzchak Goldstein of Talmudical Academy (9^th Grade).  H.C.D. ©,  the Helmet Concussion Detector, uses an accelerometer to monitor when a player may have been hit on the head with enough force to cause a concussion, at which time the device notifies the referee and medical staff with the player’s data so that they can determine if the player requires further injury evaluation.

Robotics and Electromechanical Devices

o   1^st place: Wiper Watchers by Malka Goldblatt, Racheli Gross, and Aviva Friedman of Bnos Yisroel (10^th Grade).  Wiper Watchers retrofits cars with a smart system that automatically turns windshield wipers on when it is raining and off when it no longer raining; it also automatically turns on headlights when either the windshield wipers are on or when it is dark outside.

o   2^nd place: The Personal Shopper by Racheli Fink and Esther Kramer of Bais Yaakov (11^th Grade).  The Personal Shopper is a robotic shopping cart that uses computer vision to follow a specific person while using ultrasonic sensors to avoid bumping into other people or obstacles.

Special Awards

o   Best Business Plan Award: Stay Protexted by Bracha Dixler, Tzippora Fine, Adina Monderer, and Menucha Shmidman of Bnos Yisroel (11^th Grade).  Stay Protexted is a school bus safety system where each child scans a personal ID card when they board the bus, and the system sends a personalized text message on a smartphone app to their respective parents, indicating that their child has now boarded the bus.

o   The Honorable Judge Marvin Garbis Best Technical Engineering Award: Project SR by Moshe Massre, Yoseph Seinfeld, and Nesanel Blashka of Talmudical Academy (9^th Grade).  Project SR is a security system where an RFID ring can be used to unlock doors and send WiFi notifications.

o   The Saul Zaentz Award for Best Presentation: OVER ARMOUR by Chava Rina Benyowitz, Sarah Lencz, Sarah Solomon, and Esther Stiber and Basi Glazer of Bnos Yisroel (10^th Grade). OVER ARMOUR is a basketball glove that contains sensors to notify a referee of a defensive foul when an offensive player is shooting and their arm is contacted by a defensive player.

For the Middle School event, students were challenged to design a car powered solely by the elastic potential energy of rubber bands.  They were restricted from using pre-made wheels or car parts and were therefore encouraged to be creative in their use of materials when building the cars.  The cars then competed in head to head heats along a 48-foot race track where they scored points based on how far they went.  After three rounds, 1^st and 2^nd place winners were selected from both the boys’ and girls’ races.

The winners were:

Boys’ race

o   1^st place: Team Mickey Mouse (Michoel Dov Heyman, Yechezkel Kirshenbaum, and Menachem Kirshenbaum of Torah Institute)

o   2^nd place: Team Pollack (Ephraim Hersten and Yechezkel Polek of Torah Institute)

Girls’ race

o   1^st place: Team Bolt (Chevi Breuer, Esther Leah Paige, and Tamar Lasson of Bnos Yisroel)

o   2^nd place: Team M8 (Miriam Rochel Waitzman and Menucha Leah Bloch of Bnos Yisroel)

A special thank you to the Honorable Judge Marvin Garbis and the Saul Zaentz Charitable Foundation for their generous support of CIJE programming in the Baltimore area and CIJE’s Maryland Innovation Day 2019.

CIJE would also like to thank the following volunteer judges who spent hours reviewing the projects both before and during the event:

o   Rachel Dziatko, Researcher at the JHU Bragg Lab for Photochemistry

o   Chaya Fishman, Founder of the Jewish Woman Entrepreneur

o   Judge Marvin Garbis, Senior Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Maryland

o   Angela Groszos, Engineer at the JHU chapter of Students for the Exploration and Development of Space

o   Samuel Hamermesh, JHU Mechanical Engineering Student

o   Mariah Harris, President of Women of Mechanical Engineering Network at JHU

o   Chana Honick, Researcher at the JHU Bragg Lab for Photochemistry

o   Niel Leon, Senior Engineer at JHU WSE Manufacturing

o   Brian Silverman, Engineer at Ready Set STEM

o   Judy Weiss, Director of Financial Analysis at The Shelter Group

o   Isaac Wolman, CEO of Make It Real

Congratulations to all of the participants on their impressive projects!