At the heart of invention

Despite excelling academically and participating in several extracurricular activities at Garey High School, Avila Pinedo said she didn’t feel very challenged by school. “Looking for something a little more” she happened upon a flyer for an invention club during her sophomore year and decided to check it out — a decision that would change the trajectory of her life.

But this invention club, so critical to her development, almost didn’t happen.

In the spring of 2017, Garey High School science teacher Antonio Gamboa was reading through his emails when one in particular — from the Lemelson-MIT Program — caught his attention. A leader in invention education, Lemelson-MIT’s email described a program that sought innovative high schoolers to team up and create inventions to solve self-selected community problems. These “InvenTeams” would be given grant money to build a prototype of their invention and present it at a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) event called EurekaFest in Boston.

Gamboa exclaimed out loud, “They want me to invent something?! I’m not inventing anything! That’s it! I’m not doing it!” 

Evelyn, a student in his class, overheard him and declared, “I want to invent something!”

That utterance started a conversation about inventing between teacher and pupil, and eventually a deal. If Evelyn served as the project lead, Gamboa would act as a mentor on the project.

She got to work promoting the InvenTeam program at school by creating a flyer, using social media, and through word of mouth. It was her flyer that inspired Avila Pinedo to join the team. The school’s first invention club consisted of seven girls and one boy, representing six countries: The United States, Guatemala, Mexico, Vietnam, Nepal, and the Philippines.

With the team now assembled, the crew set about their first task: Determining what problem they wanted to solve. Several ideas were floated, but the team eventually decided to focus on a medical need. They found out that their low-income community had a very high diabetes rate and limited access to health care. Wanting to address this issue, the team turned to community members who helped them understand the problem better. They talked to medical staff and individuals who were diabetic, including a team member’s grandfather who had the condition. Through these conversations, the invention team learned that mobility and neuropathy issues were major concerns for those afflicted. With those conditions in mind, the team decided to create an invention that would trim toenails and help with foot care. Their invention idea was submitted to Lemelson-MIT and the Garey High group was selected as one of the 15 Lemelson-MIT InvenTeams for 2017-2018.

Shortly after they were chosen, the teens started to question their proposed invention. Sharp objects could create cuts on the feet, especially with a team made of engineering novices. If the invention did not work properly, it would actually cause more harm than good — a realization that led them to stop and rethink their invention.

With renewed resolve, the team decided to create a diagnostic tool to help diabetics monitor oxygen levels and blood flow in their feet. This pivot, while necessary, was not without significant effort. Avila Pinedo recalled that the team came early in the mornings, leveraged extra moments from other classes, and tried to find any spare time they could to research and build their prototype. Akin to a puzzle, she said it took a couple of different tries and various rearranging of the pieces to make their invention, named “Heart and Sole,” a reality. 

Each member of the team performed specific functions and took on particular roles for the invention build. Avila Pinedo was responsible for leading the development of the oxygen saturation censor that monitors the levels of oxygen in the person’s blood. Having no previous coding experience nor specialized computer classes at school, she had to figure out how to get those sensors to work herself.

“It was my responsibility to learn, to teach myself and to make sure I knew what I'm doing and that was very empowering. It was also kind of scary to know that if I didn't know something… it was my fault,” she said.

Taking on this challenge helped Avila Pinedo to discover her own inner inventor.

“Invention is that opportunity to explore your own limits of your creativity and your abilities. And that doesn't mean you have to know how to build a sensor, but you do need to take responsibility for your own education,” she said.

As the young innovator delved deeper into the project, Avila Pinedo realized “the more I learned, the more I learned what I didn’t know.”

Despite the unexpected challenges and difficult times, she said the teachers advising the invention team created an environment that was fun, student-driven, and supportive while allowing students space to fail and try again.

With his background in research, teacher and InvenTeam advisor Gamboa gravitates toward exploring the unknown.

“The beauty of invention is that it challenges you to do something that has no answer. It motivates you to think of your own ideas, to see if you can do something new,” he said.

The mentors — Gamboa and fellow teacher Alexander Ruper — focused on helping the team cultivate their critical and creative thinking skills as well as develop a personal connection with the topic which can be a huge motivational key.

Those skills, along with a deep internal drive, helped Avila Pinedo overcome the numerous challenges she faced during the InvenTeam project.

Whenever she had bugs in her code, or reached a roadblock, the budding engineer would spend hours tackling the problem — even literally going the extra mile(s) to find a solution.

The day before a big presentation, she realized one of the sensors was dead — a hardware issue. Avila Pinedo said her parents drove her to a specialty store a few hours away so she could purchase a replacement for the malfunctioning component, as well as several duplicate back-ups. With the support of her parents, Avila Pinedo was able to restore functionality of the device just in time for the team to demonstrate Heart and Sole publicly for the first time at an art gallery in Pomona.

Even with the support of family and teacher advisors, doubt crept into the minds of the inventor students as they learned more about their fellow InvenTeams. Many of the teams appeared to have more resources and opportunities, Avila Pinedo said, leading some members to feel like imposters or to question if their selection had been a mistake.

The concern about resources was valid.

Their high school had no coding, engineering, robotics or other specialized STEM courses to teach them the basics. The group had limited equipment available to work on their project and many students lacked adequate funding to travel to Boston for Eurekafest.

But other perceived disadvantages — about their background or past experiences — were anything but limiting.

Sensing the insecurities, Gamboa stepped in and mentored the students, telling them that what they perceived as a liability was really their superpower.

“Your background enriches you. You can always learn what they learned in school, but they can’t learn what you have learned by living in this community,” he told the team.

The residents of Pomona showed their unwavering support for their Garey High InvenTeam. Medical professionals shared their expertise, a local newspaper helped with public relations, a fundraiser was held to cover the team’s travel costs to Boston — there was even a surprise donation of materials to use for their invention.

At the end of their school year, the team traveled to Boston to showcase and celebrate their work during EurekaFest, held on the MIT campus. In addition to presenting their prototype and receiving professional feedback, the Garey High School students also met the other invention teams from across the country.

The trip provided the team with new professional and personal experiences.

“For many of us it was the first time in the East Coast but also the first time meeting people our age from different states,” Avila Pinedo recalled. “We got to spend time with other teams as well as our own to explore Boston. It was a wonderful experience and an eye opener for us.”

Through Lemelson-MIT, the team was introduced to officials of the Microsoft #MakeWhatsNext Patent Program, which focuses on providing female inventors support through the patent process. Experts make sure that the idea is patentable and help with the pro bono law work to submit the patent application. Avila Pinedo recalled that when the Microsoft officials visited their school, the team were treated like adult clients which she said contributed to the team taking on the identity of inventors.

Although the team felt like inventors, they were not yet patented.

The patent process, which can take years, requires diligence and patience. So, while the process started when the students were in high school, it didn’t end there.

With the team members now away at college, Gamboa kept true to his word and conducted the majority of the follow-up on the patent application process, sending just an occasional question or two to the students. Avila Pinedo, in particular, wondered about the status of their submission. At one point, she logged into the system and found out that their patent had been rejected. She was devastated until she learned that this was just part of the normal back and forth process of submitting an application for review.

More than five years after Avila Pinedo picked up the invention club flyer, she and her Garey High School InvenTeam were awarded U.S. Patent No. 11,382,564 on July 12, 2022.

While the patent award was a personal success for the young inventors, Gamboa saw its wider impact.

“The next generation of students, as they walk into my classroom... they see it. You can see it on their faces, it is like, this is not your average classroom. The patent matters, as you are an inventor,” he said, adding, “it also gives leverage to the teacher. It helps you communicate with the district, your admin and with the students especially, as when you tell them, I am going to show you how to do invention … they pay attention.”

Having supported the team’s endeavor from the beginning, the Pomona community joined the newly minted inventors in celebrating their accomplishment by throwing a patent party on September 17, 2022 — Mexican Independence Day.

The packed school gymnasium featured the inventors and their families, school administration, community members, representatives from the various organizations who helped the team through the project, and USPTO officials.

USPTO Director Kathi Vidal, who attended the celebration, told the crowd, “I am excited for your innovation; I am excited for your patent, and I am excited that you exemplify the American dream. You stand for all the youth, the immigrants, the first-generation Americans, the women and the diverse people who need access to our innovation ecosystem.”

Reflecting on her journey to becoming a patented inventor, Avila Pinedo said the experience opened new doors and opportunities.

She is finishing her Computer Networks and Digital Technology degree at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and is now a public speaker, an ironic twist considering she was hesitant to go up to a fast-food counter and ask for a condiment prior to starting the project.

While the experience has benefitted her personally, Avila Pinedo looks to the larger positive impact for the educational community.

The success of the project shows other teachers and administrators that listening to students and designing curriculum based on their interests can really enhance the educational experience, she said, adding that successes like the Garey High team can encourage teachers to try new methods of teaching.

The experience inspired Avila Pinedo herself to become a teacher.

Recently, she worked with elementary-age students as part of a program called RISE (Resources for Indian Student Education, Inc.). Acting as an advisor and tutor, she helped create and teach youth hands-on engineering, invention, and programming lessons for an afterschool project designed to create computer science and STEM pathways. Avila Pinedo proposed doing the invention-based curriculum as a result of her Lemelson MIT InvenTeam experience.

“My commitment for helping people comes from always receiving help myself. As the youngest in an immigrant family, I depended a lot on others to know what to do. As new users of the school system, my mom depended on other moms to tell her how to navigate it all. And as first-generation college bound students, we depended a lot on academic counselors and organizations to support us. Even with the InvenTeam we relied heavily on others to build the best invention and travel to MIT,” she said. “All the events in my life have taught me you can not do anything alone ... but when you allow others to support you, it can elevate your success and create new opportunities [and] networks.”

For Gamboa, the InvenTeam experience has created lasting positive change at Garey High School.

The white board in his classroom is filled with invention ideas alongside a list of names of students interested in invention. Just like Avila Pinedo’s team, more girls than boys tend to participate in the invention process at his school, Gamboa said, which is not the norm nationally.

Although he can’t pinpoint the reason why more girls participate, Gamboa said he thinks the supportive, safe space to explore ideas is a key factor.

“Yes, indeed, invention is transformational,” he said. “I have seen it not only on the InvenTeam students, but in many others who have realized that imagining, thinking and applying concepts brings opportunities and in the process, they discover that they can do something. This realization motivates them to explore further in education with the knowledge that invention is for everyone. As more students experience it, the entire school is impacted with the idea of possibilities.”