Five Public Schools Using STEM to Make a Difference in Their Communities are Named Winners of the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow Contest

Comfortable cardboard classroom furniture for special needs students, prosthetic enhancements for veterans and a smartwatch app for pedestrian safety are among the winning projects of this year’s Solve for Tomorrow contest.  Five groups of public school students from across the United States have been named Grand Prize Winners, taking home $120,000* in technology for their school.

The contest challenges students in grades 6 through 12 nationwide to use their STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) skills to innovate a solution to a problem affecting in their community. This year, the Grand Prize Winners were selected from a pool of more than 4,100 school groups that submitted ideas last October for how they would apply STEM to making a difference.

The 2016 Solve for Tomorrow Grand Prize Winners are:

Mission Valley ROP/James Logan High School, California
Students designed and constructed a fully-functional, solar-powered charging station for their Bay Area neighborhood – the region with the highest number of electric vehicles on the roads today. They were named the Community Choice Winner, selected by a public vote on Instagram and Twitter. View their video submission here: James Logan High School.

Brooklyn Technical High School, New York
After three fellow students were tragically hit and killed by cars, students developed a smartwatch app that warns pedestrians of oncoming vehicles. They were named the Samsung Ambassador Choice Winner, by a vote of Samsung employees. View their video submission here: Brooklyn Technical High School.

Horizon Middle School, Colorado
Students living near Buckley Air Force Base have family members and friends and know other residents who have lost limbs while serving abroad and struggle with the cost of prosthetics. The students designed a comfortable, cost-effective prosthetic enhancement for one of the local wounded veterans. They were selected by the judges at the Pitch Event held at Samsung 837 in New York City in March. View their video submission here: Horizon Middle School.

Ridgewood Middle School, Missouri
The students noticed that some of their peers with disabilities had trouble staying upright in their chairs, and so they used reinforced cardboard to engineer comfortable classroom furniture for their peers and have developed more than 20 pieces to date. They were selected by the judges at the Pitch Event held at Samsung 837 in New York City in March. View their video submission here: Ridgewood Middle School.

Loudon Valley High School, Virginia
With limited cell reception on the Washington and Old Dominion Trail, several hikers and cyclists have been injured or attacked and unable to call for help. The students designed a wireless, solar-powered and weatherproof safety alert system that rapidly connects to emergency services. They were selected by the judges at the Pitch Event held at Samsung 837 in New York City in March. View their video submission here: Loudon Valley High School.

All five of the Grand Prize Winners are invited to Washington, D.C. for an awards luncheon, meetings with their Congressional representatives and a tour of the White House on April 27. Students from the winning schools in California and Colorado have also been invited to present their projects at the White House Science Fair on April 13.

“Solve for Tomorrow is designed to inspire students to rethink STEM and realize their ability to apply those skills to address safety, environmental and health issues in their own backyards and around the world,” said Ann Woo, senior director of Corporate Citizenship at Samsung Electronics America. “We are so proud of these students at these five schools for their ingenuity and creativity in applying STEM to solving problems in their communities and creating positive change.”

In addition to technology, the five Grand Prize Winners have won prizes from Samsung partners BrainPop, Adobe, National Environmental Education Foundation and Nepris.

The Samsung Solve for Tomorrow contest was created in 2010 to bridge the gap in STEM education in public schools across the United States. Since its inception, the contest has awarded more than $17 million* in technology and prizes to more than 1,000 schools. To learn more about the competition, please visit: http://www.samsung.com/solve.

A video of this year’s Pitch Event can be found here: http://smsng.news/1RWevNH.

*Estimated retail value

About Samsung Electronics America, Inc.
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