Meet the young Webmakers who went to the White House

What is possible when kids embrace the idea ‘Making is Learning’?

Mozilla’s community hub, the Hive Learning Network, creates new opportunities for teens to explore their interests, create their own spaces, experiences, and projects, and share what they make with their peers. Meet two amazing kids who participate in the program, and see what they took to the White House:

Zainab Oni is 16 years old and a High School junior in New York. She and her family moved from Lagos, Nigeria to the United States after her mother passed away, so that she and her siblings could find better educational opportunities. She joined the MOUSE Corps technology design program in 2010 and in 2012, she interned with the HIVE NYC as a Mozilla Webmaking Mentor and hopes to study design and technology at the Parsons New School for Design.

The project she developed and brought to the White House Science Fair:

The Dining Band is a wrist-mounted Arduino circuit that uses distance and temperature sensors to communicate the location of food on a plate, for diners who are blind and visually impaired. The Dining Band team (7 NYC public school students) spent a year learning and practicing the process of Human-Centered Design. Through interviews at Visions at Selis Manor (a center for the blind/visually impaired), they learned that people who are blind often struggle to eat discreetly in public without making a mess, or needing to use their fingers to find the food on the plate. With this challenge in mind, they brainstormed ideas and built several prototypes with a physical computing mentor. Their final prototype, the Dining Band, won top prize at the Emoti-Con! NYC Youth Digital Media and Technology Challenge and was selected to present at the New York Maker Faire in 2012.

Senqué A. Little-Poole (bottom row, second from right) is a sophomore in Pittsburgh. In addition to being a full-time high school student, he is an apprentice in the Campbell Laboratory for Infectious Eye Diseases at the University of Pittsburgh Eye and Ear Institute. Senqué observes the varicella zoster virus at a molecular level to isolate the gene that inflicts pain on those who are infected. During the summer of 2012, he completed an 8-week internship at the Thomas Jefferson University College of Medicine in the Department of Cancer Biology where he learned advanced lab procedures and contributed to the production of fusion cells for Glioma Cancer research. As a result of his outstanding performance, Senqué has been invited to return this year. Senqué is also a Hive Youth Mentor with middle school students at the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh.

The project he developed and brought to the White House Science Fair:

Brain Quest: Cell Tracing with CFSE. The purpose of this investigation is to find out how to get anti-virus cells to successfully proliferate within the brain, which could cure diseases such as rabies, Alzheimer’s, sclerosis and several forms of cancer.

Maker Party 2013:

This summer, kids like Zainab and Senque will participate in Mozilla’s Maker Party 2013 - sharing what they’ve learned, and teaching other youth how to use the web to Make, Connect and Share.

To get involved now, sign up for updates and event info here. 

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