Local teens win national honors with ‘playful biodesign experience’
Three high school students from Sunnyvale and Cupertino won two awards at the 2019 Biodesign Challenge Summit in New York. Fremont High School junior Anne Hu, Monta Vista High School sophomore Trisha Sathish and Pinewood High School sophomore Emily Takara made up one of three high school teams in the competition. Pinewood is a private high school formerly located in Sunnyvale. The team, dubbed GIY Bio Buddies, was led by artist and educator Corinne Takara.
This year was the first year that high schoolers were eligible to participate in the challenge, in which college teams from around the world usually compete. This year, 37 teams from nine countries participated in the challenge. Participants develop their products throughout the year and present their ideas at the annual two-day summit, held at the Parsons School of Design and the New York Museum of Modern Art.
The GIY Bio Buddies were the only high school team among nine finalists. The team spent more than eight months developing a toy kit that introduces kids to biomaterials consisting of leather produced from kombucha and mycelium, the root-like structure of fungus.
The team’s goal is “to create a playful biodesign experience for all ages” to increase interest in STEM subjects while also breaking away from the plastics normally used in the toy industry.
The team won the Outstanding Field Research award and the Runner-Up award. Takara, was presented with the Outstanding Instructor award.
For more information, visit giybiobuddies.weebly.com.