Payton, Kiona, and their Northeast High School classmates received a 2012 InvenTeam grant from the Lemelson-MIT Program, which supported their development of the innovative design.
The students, who were selected to be a 2012 Lemelson-MIT program InvenTeam, built the device with the goal of reducing the number of drowning deaths due to rip currents in the Great Lakes.
Meanwhile a survey by the Lemelson Center at MIT survey found that the majority of teenagers may be discouraged from pursuing STEM careers because they do not know anyone who works in these fields and they do not understand what people in these fields do.