Mara Hug Spotlight: Make48 Competitor to Mentor
- Make48+Team
- Mar 5
- 4 min read
If you walked into a Make48 competition a few years ago, you might have met a quiet student named Mara Hug. Fast forward to today, and Mara is a creative force of nature. This young woman is a podcaster, instructional assistant, college student, and an upcoming leader in the community.
Her journey with Make48 didn’t start with a "spark" – it started with a bit of a push. But as any true innovator knows, sometimes the best breakthroughs happen under pressure. We sat down with Mara to talk about her evolution from a nervous regional competitor to a mentor inspiring the next generation of visually impaired makers.
KSSB Competition and Nationals
Mara’s first experience at the Season 7 Regionals wasn’t exactly love at first sight. In fact, she admits she was more than a little skeptical. While Mara wasn’t a full-time student at the Kansas School for the Blind (KSSB), she was a fixture of their community for over a decade through their summer programs. It was during one of those summers that she was first introduced to Make48.
At the time, she wasn't exactly a willing participant. 'I didn’t really want to do it, but it was given to us as part of the weekend curriculum,” Mara admits. “I was pretty nervous, and honestly, I actually hated my first Make48 experience. I was like, ‘Please don't let us win. I don't want to go back.” But a funny thing happened on the way to the podium: her team, Nuts & Bolts, took second place.
When Nationals (season 7) in North Little Rock rolled around, something shifted. Mara stepped up in a leadership role to lead the pitch and blossomed into a confident communicator. “I finally came to my senses, and I was like, wait, Make48 is awesome. I love this. Then I kept coming back as many times as I could.”
Mara has returned to Make48 as both a volunteer and a valuable mentor. She was a mentor at the 2024 KSSB event when visually-blind teams from around the country competed. Mara returned to mentor teams at Operation Breakthrough for Nationals, and most recently, Mara returned this past summer to help at the ‘Women in STEM’ event. Having been through the high-pressure environment herself, she knows exactly what the students are feeling.
Her piece of advice for teams with those first-day jitters? “It’s probably cliché, but have fun with it because it’s going to be a wasted experience if you’re just stressing about it the whole time. I think that is also going to help you develop a better product.”
Watching from the sidelines has given her a new appreciation for what the Make48 competitions do for others, internally and externally. Meeting teams from diverse backgrounds, tackling the same problem with completely different solutions, is one of the most rewarding parts of the process. That, and getting to visit with the friends and mentors she’s met along the way, including Lydia Moreno, KSSB educator.
Breaking Barriers & Debunking Myths
When she isn't at a competition, Mara is a sophomore at Kansas State University, majoring in Communication Studies with a minor in Philosophy and receiving her Film Studies certificate. She’s also an instructional assistant in the KSSB makerspace, helping kids master machines and bring their own creative projects to life. “I don't really know what I want to do for a career yet, but I know that I want to be an author and I want to work on film editing in some capacity.”
Mara is passionate about changing the narrative surrounding the visually impaired community. Through her podcast, The Unseen Perspective, she tackles the misconceptions head-on, specifically the idea that a physical disability equates to a cognitive one.
“People just treat you like you’re less cognitive if you have a physical disability, like blindness...we often get treated like children because we can't see, which doesn't really make sense to me.” Surprisingly, out of the student body of 16,000 undergraduates, Mara is one of only two students who are visually impaired. Alongside her roommate, Mary, Mara represents a small but powerful demographic on campus, shattering stereotypes and redefining what it means to navigate a world built for the sighted.
Mara recently experienced the ‘cost of inclusion’ firsthand. After being asked to verify the Braille for a campus building, the project was abruptly scaled back. “They told me tactile signs were too expensive, so they’d just use high-contrast print instead,” Mara shared. “That’s great, but it doesn't help everyone. The issue is that the world is built for the sighted, and making it accessible is seen as a burden rather than a necessity. We have to work together to bridge that gap.”
What’s Next for Mara?
Whether she’s writing fantasy and sci-fi novels or editing documentaries, Mara’s future is undeniably creative. She credits Make48 with helping her lean into those ambitions.
“I think being in an environment where [innovation] was so motivated and encouraged helped me as a person, and it helped me to get more into my creative hobbies. I don’t know what I would do if I had never met all those cool people at Make48.”
Want to hear more from Mara? Check out her podcast, The Unseen Perspective, where she discusses everything from life at K-State to debunking blind misconceptions.
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