SlingShot

Some people say that changing the world is too big of a job. That changing the way people live and grow is just too large of a task for a group of people to accomplish in one lifetime. Well, a man named Dean Kamen disagrees.

On Friday, January 16th, team 1511 hosted a movie called Slingshot. At ten dollars a ticket, approximately one-hundred people came to view the movie. With the grace of Penfield High School, the team was allowed to use the auditorium to view the movie. In fact, we were even allowed to sell snacks!

The premise of the movie was Dean’s journey through the creation of his invention, Slingshot. Slingshot is a device that purifies water in rural areas of Central and South America and many parts of South Africa. Starting in 2000, Dean and his crew began working with the simple dream to help people across the globe. Dean’s major company, DEKA, (other than FIRST, of course) specializes in healthcare. So Dean thought to himself, what better healthcare could there be than clean drinking water for the entire world?

Since that time, his hope has become a reality. He and his team paired their efforts with the Coca Cola Company (who I now hold in a much higher respect) to send their devices around the world. The hope for these machines is that they will run on low maintenance for at least five years.

The team, I included, loved hosting the movie. It was fun to see so many people from the community come together to share a love of science; that’s something most people don’t see every day. For me, the movie was pretty cool. I’ll admit, I was expecting a boring documentary. But instead, I watched a movie that reminded me that anything is possible through science and engineering. If he and his team can create a device that filters water anywhere in the world, then who’s to say we can’t cure cancer?

Just something to think about 😃

Blogger KT