Page 68 - Innovation Delaware 2019

and director of the Summer Learning Collaborative, a program that helps combat summer learning loss among low-income children, hired Rossi to offer his Ground Up computer coding pro- gram at Tyler’s Camp, the collaborative’s component for middle school students.
“Noah is a role model, as well as a very promising entrepreneur. He’s one of the most impressive and diligent stu- dents I’ve worked with,” says Lindroth, who first met Rossi at Dual School, a program she helped create. “We wanted to provide his engaging approach to computer science to our students, and to make sure they could see an example of a near peer taking leadership and making an impact in the community.”
Having mastered computer coding and how to teach it, Rossi is now learn- ing the ins and outs of marketing his business. He says he already has three types of payment structures: one for classes paid for entirely by parents, another for schools that subsidize a part of the participants’ cost, and a third for organizations like the Summer Learning Collaborative, which use grant monies to pay for Ground Up’s services.
Next, Rossi is heading to Rice University, where he plans on majoring in computer science, minoring in business and even- tually studying for an MBA. Long-term,
he anticipates an entrepreneurial career in computer science or engineering.
He’s not sure what will happen to his Ground Up business when he heads off to college. He’d like to keep it going, perhaps with “a new generation of leadership” built from the group he has already hired.
No matter how that evolves, Rossi real- izes that his experiences as a teenager have enhanced his prospects for future success.
“I’ve learned a lot. I enjoy running a small team, managing and delegating, mak- ing sure they all work together,” he says.
MICHAEL WICIAK:
BUILDING A SAFER DRONE
When he was in middle school, Michael Wiciak began building drones and racing them in competitions in Philadelphia. But a tragic story he heard propelled him in a new direction — an effort to build a safer drone, one that
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MICHAEL WICIAK
doesn’t need exposed rotors to fly. Wiciak, a graduating senior at
Salesianum School in Wilmington, drew his inspiration from hearing about a little boy in England who picked up a drone that had crashed into a tree and fallen to the ground. But the device’s rotors were still spinning, and one of the propellers tore into the child’s right eye, costing him his vision.
“I decided I wanted to make sure this would never happen again,” Wiciak says. “A rotorless drone would be safer to use, and it should be able to fly in any type
of weather because all of the electronics would be encased.”
When he was in eighth grade, he began filling notebooks with sketches and de- signs, and one reason he chose to attend Salesianum was because he hoped to use the school’s 3D printers to develop prototypes.
Throughout high school, he has con- tinued to refine his ideas, creating three prototypes along the way, and with a partner, Nick Barrow of Avon Grove High School in Pennsylvania, has created a business called Eros Aerial.
“I handle the engineering side and he handles the business side,” Wiciak says.
Spending a semester as part of Delaware’s experimental Dual School last year enabled him to make con- nections within the UAV community. (Drones are more formally referred to as UAVs — unmanned aerial vehicles.)
Wiciak hasn’t built a model that’s capable of flying yet — but his hopes
are soaring, in part from winning $3,500 in startup cash in the 2018 Diamond Challenge competition. He’s using that money to buy a larger 3D printer — and a desk strong enough to hold it.
Wiciak has run “thrust tests” of his prototype, and has gotten it to move along the floor. He considers that development “really promising,” and is awaiting the arrival of new propellers and stronger motors to continue his testing. As he moves forward, he antic- ipates a lot of trial and error, reducing the weight of the unit’s frame and redesigning its pressure tubes until
he achieves the balance of weight and power to enable it to take flight.
His long-range goal is to create a drone that’s capable of carrying a camera, so it would appeal to aerial photo- graphers and serious hobbyists. ID
JIM COARSE/MOONLOOP PHOTOGRAPHY