12-year-old Makes Homeless Shelter from Trash
Well, this is a bit of fresh air, especially with tween news like Baby-Faced Boy Alfie Patten Is Dad At 13.
12-year-old Max Wallack stole the show at Design Squad’s Trash to Treasure contest with his “Home Dome.” The contest asked kids to repurpose trash into practical inventions.
I wonder if the Home Dome gets an honorable LEED Certification?
The dome provides shelter for the homeless and is made from plastic, wire, packing peanuts, and flargstin. Pretty much, trash.
The trash-plex looks like a Mongolian yurt, and let Max walk away with $10,000 and a Dell laptop. He also got a trip to Boston out of it. But Max had this to say, “I don’t really care about the money. I care about helping people.”
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This isn’t his first big win. “When I was six,” Max said, “I won an invention contest that included a trip to Chicago. While there, I saw homeless people living on streets, and beneath highways and underpasses. I felt very sorry for these people, and ever since then, felt that my goal and obligation was to find a way to help them. My invention improves the living conditions for homeless people, refugees, or disaster victims by giving them easy-to-assemble shelter.”
Go Max! We all look forward to your future inventions.
Source and Photo: thedesignblog.org
[...] By Leila Darabi Check out 12-year old Max Wallack’s winning invention from Design Squad’s Trash to Treasure competition. It’s a homeless shelter made from [...]
um…. huh? wtf is this, some kind of sarcastic watse of webspace?
I thought your article was entertaining since I’m an ecofreak from the 70’s(that’s without the hatred.) That was until I read your comment about socialism. Ecofreaks understand living off the earth especially when it’s free, but socialism is characterized by taking something away from someone who worked hard and possibly sacrificed and giving it away to someone who’d rather someone else do the work.
huh? wtf is this? some kind of sarcastic waste of webspace?
Shame on you Joe Smith. If you cannot say anything uplifting of helpful you should just keep quiet.
As for all of the other negative naysayers–Hey this kid rocks. At least he is thinking about the homeless that so many people pretend not to see!!!!
As for his trash looking too new??? If I were entering a project into a contest, I would probably want it to look cleaner and not smelling of garbage. It was just a prototype like ALL great inventions start with and is not like it is going into mass production. Max has a great heart and a great idea. Maybe the materials he used are flamable, so, he can go from there with other materials. I can see him developing a recycled, collapsible (for the politicians) useful shelter for the homeless. Remember all you naysayers that we are ALL just one paycheck away from being homeless ourselves in this economy. Max may just save one of our lives with a shelter from trash!!!
Max- keep believing that you can make a difference because YOU CAN.
Kameron C: Don’t you think that before it would go into production those issues would be addressed. Flame resistant? I’m sure there is a way.
How big of a needle to you carry around to burst peoples success bubbles?
I agree that far too many builders don’t consider the benefits of designing to take advantage of passive solar.
However, it’d be generally foolish to tear down all the bad examples (my affordable home included). It would be more useful to recommend ways (in a range of prices) homeowners may ameliorate this flaw. Also consider how to create incentives to build with passive solar in mind.
Personally, I’m considering awnings or other temporary shading for the west side of my house during the all-too-brief Puget Sound summers.
Kameron~I can tell by your thinking- that you could care less about Anyone!! seems to me- like you are a Little spoiled!! also sounds like you have Never slept out in the cold!!! I am also SURE- you were never in the Military!!! I doubt that you would pass the physical!! sorry Bud~you lost my vote!! I think the Little guy who came up with this plan is Remarkable!!! not only does he show~Intelligence- but he shows Humanity!! TOOO bad there are not more people in our country~with the Compassion- this 12 yr old has!!! IT would be a far better America!!! Have a nice day!!
Hi,
I like the layout of this site,it has alot of good info.
I am interested in solar shingles(PV) and a small wind turbine.
I live in an attached house in New York about 10miles east of Manhattan.
I am looking to generate close to 50% or more of my monthly electric use.
Most of the light bulbs were switched to CFL’s,2 of our tube tv’s were replace with newer LCD HDTV’s.
Thank you
I commend you on your ability to recycle! My 3 bdrm, 2 bath home is constructed largely from recycled materials, so it CAN be done if you are willing to think GREEN instead of easy. Kudos!