BLOOMINGTON, IN — Bloomington South High School was named one of the three winners of the 15th annual Samsung Solve for Tomorrow STEM competition, securing a prize package valued at $100,000.
Bloomington South students Audrey Adams, Danielle Yang, Emily Wang, Isha Harbaugh, Koel Harbaugh, Nikki Beshkar, and Sara Carmona worked as a team to create Stormshield, a headband that helps individuals with hearing aids participate in athletics.
The school also received the Rising Entrepreneurship Award, which comes with an additional $25,000 to help develop a sustainable venture that extends beyond the competition.
Last week, three of the seven Bloomington High School South students in the team traveled to Washington, D.C. to present their STEM solution live to a panel of judges. Their journey spanned over six months, during which students refined their project based on real-life experiences and challenges.
Dr. Kirstin Milks, a science teacher at Bloomington South, reflected on the students' evolution throughout the competition.
“In October, I watched them sit in the corner of this classroom and come up with an idea, and I knew it could be successful,” she said.
The team, comprised of five seniors and two sophomores, faced the challenge of brainstorming and developing their project from scratch.
Student Danielle Yang wears a hearing aid. The inspiration for the invention came from her inability to compete in sports with her device.
“We had a really clear idea of the design, and it ended up changing a lot, but we knew what we wanted to do,” she said.
The competition culminated in a pitch event where 10 finalists were chosen from the 50 state winners. The stakes were high, but the students expressed their gratitude simply to be part of the experience.
“We came back, we sat down, they announced one of the first national winners, and they announced us, and I just remember all three of us just like, tears,” one of the students recalled.
Dr. Milks emphasized the significance of their achievement.
"I think it's really unusual to see kids' ideas and their follow-through and their innovation and their intellectual courage represented in a public space. And this competition lets them do just that," Milks shared.
Among the powerful messages shared by the students was a call to young girls interested in STEM fields.
“If I could say something to all the young girls watching, it's that you have to believe in your skill and you have to be confident and brave enough to really go into an idea even if you aren't totally sure that it's going to work out," Yang shared.
Another team member reflected on the feeling of being an outsider in a male-dominated field.
“You might walk into a room and see that you are the only girl studying something related to STEM, but at the end of the day, you are there because you belong, and no one should be the one telling you you don't belong.”
The students hope to improve the prototype over the coming months and eventually develop a patent.
