And the Winner of Make48 Season 9 Nationals Is….
- Make48+Team
- Nov 20, 2025
- 3 min read
The intense 48-hour inventing challenge is officially over! Make48 is thrilled to announce the successful wrap-up of our 9th season at the Fishers Maker Playground. Six winning teams from regional competitions gathered for a weekend filled with creativity, rapid prototyping, and courage as they raced against the clock to tackle a complex challenge presented by our sponsor, Corteva.
The Challenge: Food Forward
Corteva Agriscience, a global leader in agriculture, challenged our teams to develop bold, practical solutions to combat food insecurity in America. Teams were tasked with creating an innovative solution to power the Food Forward mission. The goal was to make food access easier, healthier, and more respectful for families, while providing better tools for community organizations.
Over the two days, teams had to deliver three key items:
A Prototype: A working or "looks like, feels like" model of their idea.
A Marketing Video: A 60-second video to sell their design.
A Sell Sheet: A one-page overview with key features.
After 48 hours and a quick break, the teams got up in front of their peers, tool techs, guests, and a panel of judges to pitch their idea.
The Grand Prize Winners: The Dream Makers
We are ecstatic to crown the national champions of Make48 Season 9: The Dream Makers!
This incredible team hailed from the Kansas State School of the Blind (Kansas City, KS). Team members Vivi Petelin, Sydney Parcell, and Heaven Gabrielson, along with Captains Vicki Davis and Pam Arbeiter, impressed the judges with their groundbreaking solution and flawless execution of the challenge.
They walked away with the grand prize of $10,000 and the honor of the Best Innovation award!
They also made history. While many visually-impaired teams have competed at Make48, this is the first time such a team has taken the title as Make48 National Champions. Their victory is an incredible testament to the power of diverse perspectives and the universal spirit of invention!
Recognition for The DeBruce Foundation Agilities: We Fail Fast Too
A huge shout-out also goes to the team that demonstrated exceptional adaptability, smart iteration, and a powerful can-do attitude throughout the weekend.
We Fail Fast Too, from Saint Thomas Academy (Mendota Heights, MN), earned the coveted Best Agilities award. Captain Jillian Harvalis, alongside Cory Bustamanta Chicaiza, Colin Shea, and Leo Cleary, demonstrated the ability to pivot, learn, and deliver under extreme pressure.
A Heartfelt Thank You
The success of Make48 is only possible through the unwavering support of our incredible community. A massive thank you to all of our dedicated Mentors who guided the teams, the Judges who took on the difficult task of selecting the winners, and especially the hardworking Tool Techs who kept the prototyping equipment running non-stop!
We must also extend our deep gratitude to Nick Snyder and the entire team at Maker Playground, including Cassy Coha and Cody Bruce, for providing such a fantastic national stage and for their incredible dedication, arriving early, staying late, and welcoming us with open arms.
Finally, a standing ovation to all the competing student teams this weekend – We Fail Fast Too, Wingers, Bolts & Brains, The Other Guys, The Dream Makers, and CTEC CAPS Creators. With these young, brilliant mindsets leading the way, the future looks incredibly bright in the STEM world.
Stay tuned! A full recap of the entire Nationals event, including photos, will be published next week.
Huge congratulations to The Dream Makers on this historic win! Celebrating such brilliant milestones and teamwork is truly inspiring, much like surprising someone special with romantic anniversary floral gifts to honor a beautiful journey together.
Wow, what an exciting read! Congrats to all the teams at Make48 – that sounds like such a fun and challenging event. I can only imagine all the cool prototypes they came up with! Speaking of making things look great, sometimes I need to upscale image files for my own projects to make them super clear. It's really useful!
Wow, congrats to all the Make48 winners! That sounds like an amazing event. Seeing all that creativity makes me want to document my own projects better, maybe even use something like photo edit ai to make my pictures pop!
Wow, what an exciting event! Make48 always brings out such clever ideas. It makes me think about all the cool gadgets out there. I've been looking into something new for my kitchen, maybe a nano banana pro to help with my healthy snacks!
Congrats to the winners of Make48 Season 9! What an amazing competition. Speaking of removing things, I recently used a Watermark Remover to clean up some old photos, and it worked wonders!