[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/enviro-blind.jpg” caption=”Whitby senior high school student Caroline Bravo demonstrates her team’s ‘enviro-blind’ invention. Photo credit: Deborah McIvor”]A bubbling of chattering voices fills the halls of the DeGroote School of Business in anticipation of the culmination of weeks of learning and hard work. These summertime guests of McMaster's engineering, science and business faculties have gathered for a final presentation of this year's SHAD Valley student prototypes.

“You can feel the excitement and nervous energy in the air, can't you?” asks Shad International representative Mary Dever. “I love hearing from the students how much they enjoy this program, however, it's even better to be present for the final project review, to see the rich array of creative ideas. It's amazing how quickly these students come together to collaborate on such innovative business plans and prototypes.”

“We're proud to host Shad here at McMaster for the eighth year, to show students from across the nation our great campus and rich resources,” says Doug Boreham, McMaster's Shad Valley program director. “It's inspiring to see them come together to meet their goals of creating potentially market-viable innovations around the chosen theme each year.”

This year the theme was “The Great Canadian Energy Challenge” and 52 students made up five project groups who took this theme and ran with it – coming up with ideas that creatively demonstrate the theme in some very diverse ways. The project ranged from an “EcoBrush” which is a motorized tooth brush powered by shaking the brush before using it and charging a capacitor, to a “Gravi-Chair” which was designed to provide supplementary power to hybrid buses. The concept involves using the mass of a person sitting on a special seat that powers a generator when the seat moves up and down to create extra electricity to the electric motors on a bus.

Justin Lam of Toronto, and Sarah Thompson, Nanaimo, BC, demonstrate the competition's winning prototype, 'Gravi-chair', by using a pack of CD-Rom disks as a weight. Photo credit: Deborah McIvor

“These are the 'best and brightest' selected from high schools across Canada and the U.S., who have come together at McMaster as well as the 11 other SHAD locations during the summer to learn, brainstorm and create. And they are always eager to soak up as much as they can in such a condensed period of time,” says Boreham. He credits a range of faculty guest lecturers with enriching the program through sessions on genetics, nuclear energy, stem cell research and medicine, engineering all combined with workshops on business, product design and marketing.

“I'm really excited I had the chance to come to Shad,” says 'Enviro-blinds' team member, Caroline Bravo. “There was a girl in my high school who told me about Shad and it sounded just like something I'd love to try. I love to learn, so I jumped on the 'Shad wagon' and found myself at McMaster for the month of July. There's nowhere else I'd rather be right now.”

Her 'Enviro-blinds' team proposed a solar-powered hydro supplement, intended for marketing to corporations and other high-rise tenants. Bravo, who is entering grade 12 at Trafalgar Castle School in Whitby, Ontario this fall, plans on going into life sciences and is interested in radiology. “I had considered some of the Universities in my area but now that I've spent some time here at McMaster and had a chance to learn from some of the professors and visit the campus, I will probably have McMaster in my top three institutions when I apply for University next year.”

Some of the highlights of this year's 'Mac Shad' program included a three-day camping trip to Point Pelee National Park, trips to the nuclear reactor, planetarium, anatomy labs, a day at Canada's Wonderland to conduct physics experiments, Niagara Falls and the Shaw Festival. The students also took part in numerous recreational and fitness activities, like climbing McMaster's Alpine Tower, daily use of the gymnasium and pool, and various workshops from bio-engineering to dancing.

The 'Shads' were also involved in community activities like visiting the McMaster Children's Hospital or retirement home and collecting garbage on the Rail Trail. They spent a morning at the cancer centre and learned about cancer treatment using radiation therapy. After visiting key facilities at the cancer centre, some of the students put on a musical performance in the clinic's atrium room for the patients and staff to enjoy.

“This is a 24/7 program that runs for 26 days straight,” says Boreham. “And the students are usually mentally and physically exhausted by the final day.”

In an open house reception at the University Club last Thursday, parents, students and their SHAD faculty and staff mentors gathered to celebrate the winning entry in the prototype competition, “Gravi-Chair”. “Gravi-Chair” also won the best oral presentation award and will go on to represent McMaster's Shad Valley at the national competition against all 11 other post-secondary campuses involved in the program. The Best Prototype award went to the “EcoBrush” creators. Supported by the Royal Bank of Canada, this national competition is called the RBC/Shad Entrepreneurship Cup.

To conclude their adventurous journeys into scientific experimentation and business plan development, the students took part in a banquet and variety show followed by a midnight 'good-bye' ceremony.

While the students have said 'good-bye' to McMaster, we may see a few of these bright, talented young faces yet again. Not only have they shared their ideas and innovations with the McMaster community, the McMaster community has embraced them; theyve had a chance to work with McMaster faculty, enjoy the rich campus environment and interact with many members of the local community.