Discovery Canyon students build phone charging swing through all-girls engineering club

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) - Two Discovery Canyon high school students decided to create an all-girls engineering club to get more girls interested in STEM.

They had the drive, but needed a project.

"I came across this article about a train station over in Sweden, or something like that, that had a swing-charger," said Discovery Canyon engineering teacher Josh Kinney. "All we had was the pictures. Let's see if we can try and make this!"

A swing that uses the energy of its user pumping back and forth to charge a cell phone. It was a challenge Brynn Makros and Maddie Orlowsky, now high school seniors, were eager to tackle. The WISE Club (Women in STEM/Engineering) had its start.

"It wasn't one of those projects where you have directions, and you're building it together. We designed this, and then we put it together ourselves," Orlowsky said.

That was two years ago. As of Monday, the swing is standing, and it is charging cell phones.

"I think I almost cried from happiness!" Makros said.

In those same two years, WISE has grown from two girls to 40 members, in large part due to the excitement the swing project has sparked at Discovery Canyon. It is an accomplishment the two founders truly cherish.

"Regardless of however proud we are, we are ten times more proud of the girls that are going into the future of engineering," Orlowsky said.

The girls said the swing is a constant work-in-progress. Currently, the club is working on ways to help improve the mechanisms' cold resistance as we move deeper into the winter.

"Just knowing that I made an impact on even one girl in the program, and I got her to stay in engineering, that means more than a 100% charge on my phone," Makros said.