Wake students win top national prize for their ‘truly impressive’ bus safety invention
Sixth-grade Wake County students won the top award in a national contest on Tuesday, earning $110,000 in prizes for their school for an invention that makes school bus stops safer.
The team from Holly Grove Middle School in Holly Springs developed a solar-powered sign that automatically flashes when a school bus comes within 400 feet of the stop. Their idea resulted in them being named Tuesday one of the three national winners in the Samsung Solve For Tomorrow Contest, winning $100,000 in technology for their school.
The Holly Grove students also won $10,000 on Tuesday by being named the Community Choice winner in a contest where the public voted for their favorite among the 10 national finalists.
“This year’s national winners were truly impressive not only because of the passion and curiosity they have for solving critical community issues, but also because each school’s innovation represents a tangible solution capable of achieving measurable community impact,” Ann Woo, senior director of corporate citizenship, Samsung Electronics America, said in a news release.
The awards were announced Tuesday night at a ceremony at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York City. The Holly Grove students traveled to New York and made their pitch to the judges on Monday.
The Holly Grove students were motivated to act after a classmate was almost hit by a car. They cited statistics such as how 88 percent of school bus drivers nationally have reported cars illegally passing stopped school buses, causing student injuries and fatalities every year.
“Our goal is to help prevent even one more child’s face from being added to this page (of bus stop fatalities),” Holly Grove students said in their video for the project.
Their idea is gaining traction. The Wake County school system placed their prototype sign at a stop near their school and is looking at placing more signs in areas where there have been a large number of motorists illegally passing stopped school buses.
This story was originally published April 2, 2019 at 8:00 PM.