Taking on the world

Transcona

You never know where a good idea can take you.

Hannah Fernandez, Brandon Sherby, Emma-Leigh Provido-Aleonar, and Daniel Ajuwon are Grade 12 students at Transcona Collegiate. The four recently competed against students from across North and South America in the Made to Move Communities competition — including 26 classmates in their English language arts class — before winning the Americas’ jurisdiction.

“We thought we’d be doing novel studies or some essays, but this was an inquiry project over the span of a month,” Fernandez said. “When we were chosen, we were shocked. We didn’t really want to win! We wanted another group to win so we could focus on exams. But our presentation was good.”

From there, the team went on compete in the global competition, where the group had a chance to watch the Greek team’s presentation live online.

“They had 3D models, a drone that flew up during the presentation, it was like,‘Wow!’” Fernandez said. “We just did this on a piece of paper.”

“It feels surreal, even just to communicate with other countries around the world,” Provido-Aleonar said. “That connection is pretty cool. It’s not something you get to do every day. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

The competition is sponsored and organized by Otis, an international elevator and escalator company, and this year’s edition focused on creating mobility solutions to support people and communities in times of natural disaster.

The Transcona team’s product, called Floaty Chair, is designed to keep people in wheelchairs above water until help arrives during typhoons and floods. Inspired by life jackets on airplanes, the Floaty Chair uses a U-shaped rapid expansion device that wraps around the wheelchair, ensuring the user remains safe as water levels rise. Artificial intelligence alerts first responders once the device has been activated. The team was inspired by Fernandez’s grandmother, who is in a wheelchair, as well as the shared Filipino heritage of Fernandez, Sherby, and Provido-Aleonar.

“They really liked that personal connection,” Sherby said. “And the three of us, we can’t swim.”

“So we expanded on that, so it could reach other demographics other than just mobility issues,” Fernandez said. “We could use that, we could just hang onto it, like a little kid holds onto a pool floatie. (It) could apply to other emergencies, not just a typhoon, but a flash flood or something.”

“This wasn’t just coming up with an idea, but they went through process design thinking, which is what Otis brought into this,” said Anita Maharaj, Transcona Collegiate principal. “They spent those weeks bringing those engineers in to talk about how you grow an idea. We’re very proud of our kids.”

The team’s English language arts teacher, Paul Stastook, was likewise impressed by the work his students put into their project.

“I always tell my students that history and science can tell us what happened and the mechanics, but the why comes from humanities and English language arts,” Stastook said. “They rose to the occasion. To see the growth from the beginning was amazing. I’d love to take credit for this, but I only taught them for two days before any of this, which speaks to the quality of education they’ve had in this school before that.”

While none of the team members plan to pursue careers in engineering once they graduate from high school later this June, the experience has given them confidence to pursue their own career and educational goals.

“The fact we went from ground zero, with just pen and paper, to an international competition with schools across the world was amazing,” Sherby said. “We just used our heads and some ideas.”

“Getting these mentors and getting an outside perspective to be told our work is good was so empowering,” Fernandez said. “It was like, ‘Whoa, I can actually do something here,’ and move forward in our careers once we graduate in a month.”