Make48 Competition Winners

Three White Bear Lake Area High School students took home first place in round one of the Make48 competition, competing against high school teams in the metro area.

Make48 is a fast-paced invention competition where teams have a certain amount of time to come up with an idea, build a working prototype, and pitch it to judges - all based on a real-world challenge from a sponsoring company. 

Logan Blalock, Ben Bower and Jack Firkus created a product called Blowkus - a name created using parts of all their last names. The prototype was made to help power line workers grip onto the wire’s bolts and nuts instead of just using the gloves which was a struggle for them. The students toured the Xcel Energy facility in Hugo and through conversations with power line workers and employees, they came up with this idea. 

The team will now participate in the National Competition at UW-Stout this summer where they will only have 48 hours to create and design a brand new idea.