OAKLAND PARK, Fla. – Hard work and brilliant minds went into an invention created at Northeast High School in Oakland Park, and the teachers and young minds who invented the one-of-a-kind product scored a patent for their creation.
“We found out Microsoft wanted to help us with the patent,” said Marissa Castro, who is a senior at the school. “It’s really exciting and it puts us in a place to look to what we want to do with it.”
Back in 2018, the student inventors won a $10,000 grant to advance their creation -- a device that disrupts mosquito egg laying.
The “mosquito agitator” vibrates in the water, creating a ripple effect that makes mosquitoes not want to breed.
The U.S. Patent and Trade Office awarded the students exclusive rights to their parts.
They hope their invention will give scientists a tool for any potential mosquito problems to come.
“I feel like a lot of problems will come up in the future and this invention will help mitigate those problems,” student Harold Sarmiento said.
South Florida is all too familiar with mosquito problems of the past -- Zika being one.
Teachers credit help from inside and outside the school in getting this done.
“Getting to this point where we’ve earned a patent has been because of the community support that we’ve gotten,” one teacher said.