OAKLAND PARK, Fla. – Some South Florida high school students are putting the bite on mosquitoes with a new invention that disrupts the bloodsuckers' breeding habits.
Meet the minds of the INvent-team at Northeast High School in Oakland Park.
They are heading to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology this summer after winning a $10,000 grant. Their invention? A mosquito disrupter.
"Because mosquito-borne diseases affect millions of people and, unfortunately, millions of people die, we decided that we would do something because something can be done," Edwina Alcime said. "We decided to create our invention to disrupt the breeding of mosquitoes."
A Tupperware container with a motor inside is just one version. The students have another version that will be solar powered.
The students spent a year making their concept a reality.
Their teacher, Clara Mabour, won the grant when she was a student at Northeast High School. This latest win makes them the only high school in the U.S. to get the honor twice.
"Eureka Fest at MIT is a wonderful experience, and it's something that’s going to be great for them as young engineers, inventors and scientists in the future," Mabour said.
The students are now working on a patent to take their invention worldwide.
"You can use it to lower the rates of Malaria or dengue fever -- anything that's spread from these types of mosquitoes," Halle Shelton said. "You just have such an incredible opportunity, you and your team, to go up there and present an idea that you created and you spent all this time and effort to put into it. It's just like, wow."
Northeast High School is one of 15 schools in the nation given the honor by MIT.
