The Innovation Hall Bears from Willow Springs High School have done it! At the February 2024 Project Lead The Way (PLTW) competition in Kansas City, the team secured the coveted Best Innovation award, along with a $2,000 prize, a custom-made trophy, and the ultimate ticket to Nationals.
Their Winning Idea: Seat Sentry
Seat Sentry is a revolutionary locking device designed to enhance the stadium and event experience. Through NFC technology, it ensures your seat is always yours, eliminates confusion, and even allows for in-seat concession ordering. The prototype also offers valuable data collection capabilities for venues, making it a win-win for everyone.
Meet The Team
Join us in congratulating Matthew Knapp (Team Captain), Madalyn Poor, Nolan Perkins and Seth Wake on their incredible achievement!
We’re catching up to hear about their journey, plans for Nationals, and the impact of their PLTW classes.
What was the biggest strength of your team?
Matt: That each person on the team has their area of expertise. Nolan is the video man but he’s also shown himself to be the strongest idea-man as well. Maddie is the entrepreneur who understands a sales sheet and the marketing angle. Seth is the engineer. I’m there to help them coordinate, communicate, task-manage and get what they need to do what they do or find the right person to get help from.
Nolan: I feel we had a very wide variety of skills. We had 2 engineers and 2 people who know marketing and media very well.
Maddie: Our biggest strength was by far the diversity of our skills. We had two engineers, someone with marketing knowledge, and someone with both marketing and multimedia knowledge. This really allowed us to divide and conquer each aspect of the challenge.
Seth: Strengths are something we played too drastically. This competition, in our minds, consisted of three parts: engineering, marketing, and advertisement. Make a product that's worth a company's time and money, catch the eyes of possible investors, and drive it home with everything the buyers or target audience stand to gain from your product. We knew we didn't need three engineers; we needed a well-rounded team.
How did your Project Lead The Way classes set you up for success?
Seth: I enjoyed my PLTW classes and the material felt constructive to what I had already learned. But, I already knew how to apply what the class taught, except for 3D printing and CAD software.
Before attending the class my senior year, I had already learned practical mechanical knowledge from my father and grandfather, who own and operate a logging business, where I learned how to weld, build machines and fix old cars.
What was the biggest challenge you faced during the competition at UMKC?
Seth: I can't speak for others, so I'll give you my biggest challenge: finding someone who couldn't help. Everybody there was competent, and if they couldn't help me, they would find someone who could. For anything else, I would have to go into specifics, which I feel isn't fair as these hiccups happen everywhere.
Nolan: The biggest challenge I personally faced at the competition was I had to learn how to use a new graphic design software, it was a steep learning curve but I was able to overcome the obstacle and figure it out.
Maddie: The biggest challenge for me personally was the intimidation factor going into the competition. All I knew about the competition beforehand was that our team had to design, fabricate, and market an invention. Other than that, I had no idea what to expect. I was terrified that we’d arrive and realize that this competition was completely out of our league of specialties.
Matt: Getting a stadium seat on which to mount our design was the hard part because it was out of our hands, to a certain extent, and the nature of the design was going to hinge on that seat’s layout, so that was crucial. We knew we could design our own, but that was Plan B and the plan we ended up moving forward with. Truly, I think it ended up playing to our advantage because the seat was clearly “ours” and ended up showcasing our model really well.
What do you think your team will do differently at Nationals (if anything)?
Maddie: I think this will depend on the challenge more than anything else. We were lucky enough in prelims to hone in on our idea really quickly, which gave us a huge time advantage. If we’re given a challenge that’s outside of our wheelhouse or that takes us longer to brainstorm for, we may need to adjust the way we manage our time in comparison to prelims.
Nolan: I feel we did very well in the previous competition, the only thing we could probably do differently is work on our pitch a little, it felt very rushed in the previous competition.
Matt: Really, I think the goal is to repeat the formula. We centered on an idea very early so we could quickly get ahead and let each of the team members work in their specialty area and do what they do best.
Seth: We did so much better than I expected we would at this competition. Being our school's first time and the fact that I hadn't even heard of this event before made me think we didn't have a good chance. Without sounding arrogant, we got the formula right on the first try, which is quite rare. I don't think we should change anything going into nationals, including our mindset. It's important to play to win but never expect to.
What is a fun fact about you?
Seth: I enjoy all types of music. It could be heavy metal, an orchestral piece, or gangster rap; frankly as long as it isn't commonly accepted to be horrible by all who listen to it, chances are I'll enjoy it.
Maddie: I have an unhealthy addiction (at least for my wallet) to house plants that began last year, mostly thanks to the ACT.
Matt: I’m a jack of all trades, so I can assist wherever. Graphics, design, 3D modeling, music, video… and I can pop in when things are getting stale and get the juices flowing again.
What’s one thing you want to do or see in Kansas City or at the competition?
Seth: I would like to participate again. Simply getting to be a part of this event feels like such an honor. This event, where imagination flies free, is magical (as corny as it might sound). With all of the amazing things I've ever been a part of, Make48 ranks high. I'm talking top two. And I get to experience it with a group of people I think very much of. Needless to say, excitement isn't the half of it.
Nolan: The Make48 team at the last competition were great people. Any of them would be great to see again.
Maddie: I’m really excited to get to talk more with everyone helping to run, produce, and film the competition. Getting to be surrounded by so many experts in such a wide variety of fields was an incredible experience, and everyone was so incredibly kind while we were competing.
Matt: I want to pick confetti out of my hair!
What would be your advice to someone who wanted to participate in a Make48 competition?
Nolan: I would say that 48 hours feels like a long time, but when the timer starts ticking it's gonna go by a lot faster than you expect, make good use of all that time. If you have down time from the project you're working on, see if a teammate could use any assistance. Even when the day is over and the building space is closed, you can continue work in the night hours and behind the scenes, this will give you a considerable advantage.
Maddie: Bring a team with a broad skill set. You never know what sort of knowledge or skill might come in handy while competing, so the more well-versed team members are in different areas, the greater your advantage.
Matt: Build a diverse team rather than kids who you think will work well together from a more protracted subject area. Our kids didn’t really have any experience working together before the competition, but because there was a culture of trust and confidence in one another’s abilities, it worked well and the team gelled.
Seth: Possible Make48 contestants, heed these words:
Don't get behind; in fact, always stay ahead.
Don't be stressed or dissuaded by the cameras; be yourself.
Do have fun. Talk to people, make friends. I promise you can learn something from any of them.
Do make use of your resources. If you think you need something, ask; it never hurts."
Congratulations to the Innovation Hall Bears team! We will see you at the 8th national Make48 competition at Operation Breakthrough at the Ignition Lab Powered by 87 & Running this fall.
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