Make48 has selected 8 teams from the Wichita area to square off in the first Make48 at GoCreate!
One winning team will be awarded $2,000 and will get a ticket to go to the Nationals Competition slated for March 2022.
The competition is supported in part by Koch Industries who is serving as the Challenge Sponsor, giving the teams the challenge they will solve. The theme for this challenge is Sustainability & Environmental Stewardship: Doing More with Less.
Meet your Wichita teams competing this June.
Baby Cactus
*not pictured Katie and Juan
Baby Cactus stars four recent and current college students from Wichita; Katie, Grant, Jerome and Juan.
Katie is a senior in Engineering Technology and Business at Wichita State University. In the future, she plans to use these skills to contribute to an innovative engineering company capable of making a significant difference in lives around the world.
Grant is 18 years old and has a background in programming and engineering. He originally got his start in video game development and later took those same coding skills to robotics, artificial intelligence and such. Grant wants to use his skills to make differences in the world.
Jerome is originally from Penang, Malaysia. He worked as an R&D engineer for the National Institute for Aviation Research at Wichita State University. Jerome enjoys participating in research projects, particularly fundamental study, developing process and simulation model and finding solutions to engineering problem.
Juan is a Computer Science student at Wichita State University and is originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina. He enjoys learning new things and is working towards his degree.
SuperVaders
Meet the SuperVaders; Bill, Jagger, Travis and Quentin.
Bill is an employee at Spirit Aerosystems, Inc., where he's worked as a calibration technician for last 14 years. Bill is a retired, disabled Veteran who proudly served the United States Air Force for 21 years between active duty and the Air National Guard.
Jagger works as a operations analyst at Spirit AeroSystems and is an avid musician. He spent years as a carpenter before Spirit and still enjoys creating projects at home that challenges his design/build skills.
Travis is the Director of Sales and Marketing for a beverage and food distributor in Kansas and has been with the company for 22 years. For the last 10 years, he’s been responsible for creating and implementing their marketing plan and materials to take products to the consumer.
Quentin is the youngest of the group at 20 years old, and is currently working at Amazon. Quentin is looking for a different job in his field of study at school, where he’s currently a student at WSUTech and working on his degree in Engineering Design. He really enjoys creating things and coming up with ideas while always trying to solve problems.
Team Minintros
Amanda and her son Joey created Team Minintros. Their associated brand is putting ideas in action while using what they have on hand.
Currently, Amanda is homeschooling and working on being green. She achieved two degrees in Psychology and Liberal Arts. She values diversity, resources/poverty, and life satisfaction.
Joey is an 8 year-old second grader. I asked him what extra curricular activity he would like to pursue. He said, "breakdancing". Joey is exploring everything from semi-vegan, dancing, to Japanese culture. He is a social butterfly, and would probably be better at Business than his mom.
ICT Design Team
ICT Design Team is a group of Wichita makers and creatives; Amy, David, Jan and Matt.
Amy works as a Senior Financial Management Analyst at the City of Wichita. In her spare time, she enjoys tennis, bicycling, and kayaking.
David owns Fowler Woodworking, which specializes in designing and building quality hand-built furniture. He loves the creative process.
Jan is the Chief Financial Officer & Assistant Museum Director at the Wichita Art Museum. She stays busy watching son Matt Fowler participate in sports.
Matt is 16 years old and is in the East High International Baccalaureate (IB) program. He is a member of the East varsity swimming and tennis teams.
Andover CAPS
Meet the trio from Andover CAPS, Trevor, Hayden and Seth.
Trevor recently attended Andover Central High School where he attended their CAPS program within the engineering strand. During his time at CAPs, Trevor worked on many projects. Trevor is planning on majoring in engineering because he enjoys math and science, AND the idea of design.
Hayden is a senior at Andover High School. He’s attending Kansas State University to study Mechanical Engineering and pursue his master's in business administration. Hayden is currently involved in Andover CAPS engineering where he has designed and created things such as a mirror gasket for an old car and a baseball bat table made out of old bats.
Seth is the engineering instructor at Andover Center for Advanced Professional Studies (CAPS). Seth wanted to compete in Make48 because he’s passionate about the engineering design process and the tools and techniques to turn ideas into reality.
Veni, Vidi, Vici
Meet Rafael and Felipe from team Veni, Vidi, Vici (“I came, I saw, I conquered.” )
Rafael has a Mechanical Engineering Bachelor’s degree from the Santa Catarina State University (Brazil) and is pursuing a Mechanical Engineering Master of Science degree at Wichita State University. Rafael is passionate about applying engineering concepts to create solutions for real problems.
Felipe is an undergraduate junior majoring in Mechanical Engineering, at Wichita State University. Felipe is eager to learn different things and always uses his own experience and/or advice from other people to solve the problem the best way possible.
Team DropTables
Team DropTables has been selected as one of the participating teams for the upcoming Make48 event in Wichita and are excited to participate!
Pankaja originally moved to Wichita in 2015 for college, Pankaja (or Punk to friends) is an engineer at Filimin, a local start-up that invented Friendship Lamps. He's had a life-long fascination with how things work and wants to over-engineer and optimize everything.
John has spent most of his professional career as a violinist. His recording of Vivaldi's Four Seasons has been featured as one of the best sounds available on Wikipedia. John has also worked as an electrical engineer and as faculty in Engineering and Music. In December 2014 John invented Friendship Lamps and founded Filimin to make them in Wichita.
Tom has been the techno wizard fix-it guy for several small businesses over the last 40 years. He’s mostly focused on developing industrial and consumer electronic products but has also extended himself into teaching innovation in engineering at Wichita State University and co-founding Wichita's community maker space MakeICT.
Quivira Council Scouting
Ben, Jace, Jared and Sam are scouts from the Quivira Council Scouting!
Ben is a Junior at Maize South High School where he’s enrolled in multiple honors classes. Last year, Ben was a part of the Business professionals of America where he took 4th in HTML web programming at state. One of his creative outlets is the Vex Robotics team where he builds, designs and tests the team's robots.
Jace graduated from Bishop Carroll Catholic High School in 2021. During his senior year he solved a problem, invented a new product and started his own company. VeloSound LLC sells a 3D printed accessory for the Peloton bike that redirects sound back to the rider. He plans to attend WSU in the fall and major in mechanical engineering and business.
Jared is 15 years old and completing his Freshman year of High School. He’s home-schooled and the oldest of five children. Jared is a Life Scout, working on completing the Eagle rank soon. He loves marketing, design, robotics and creating videos. Jared is considering a career in the field of engineering in the future.
Sam is a 16 year old junior in the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program at Wichita East High School, a comprehensive and rigorous college-preparatory program. He hopes to major in engineering or computer science after high school.
Keep updated with the event and teams at www.make48.com/wichita.