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Senior Jordan Schmidt is Gulliver Prep’s Silver Knight nominee in the General Scholarship area.
He’s also a National Merit Semifinalist.
Schmidt has developed a project called Save Woofie! to save dogs from dying from blue-green algae. The algae makes the water toxic and can kill dogs in minutes.
“It’s been found all around the U.S.,” he says. “Dogs can be in critical condition within 15 minutes and dead in three hours, all from a single gulp. We are making an app and a phone attachment. By using those two together they will be able to take a picture of a water sample and know whether there is blue-green algae in the water.”
The phone app and attachment are important to use even if you don’t see the blue-green algae because it could be hidden on the other side of the lake and the water is contaminated.
The team includes a computer science group that focused on the app and an engineering group and bio-medical group that focused on the attachment.
“We’ve programmed a basic version of the app,” he says. “We tested the prototype and we are submitting both the app and the physical component as a single project.”
The project has made it to the second round of the Conrad Challenge and they should know in February whether they are finalists.
They also submitted the app to the Congressional App Challenge and are awaiting word on how their entry did.
This past summer, to help health care professionals in South Florida, Schmidt created the frames for face shields. Using 3-D printers, he contributed to Gulliver’s efforts to print and donate approximately 1,000 face shields. Most of the shields were donated to Open Source Medical Supplies Face Shield of South Florida.
“They take donations, assemble them and donate them to health care workers,” he says.
“For the first week, almost every morning I woke up and worked three hours a day. 3-D printing can be finicky. I was figuring it out until I got into the groove.”
After a while, he was able to print a mask in an hour.
His community service includes volunteering for Guitars Over Guns. Until COVID-19 shut things down, he taught Breakthrough Miami students how to play ukuleles provided by Guitars Over Guns.
While Schmidt is not in a band, he does play guitar at school during the morning announcements and he has written his own songs.
“I wrote a song with a friend of mine and we won The Anselm Rothschild Memorial National Song Competition,” he says. “It’s on all streaming services.”
He was regional song leader for the Florida Region of NFTY for two years and led songs over numerous North American events. This year he’s a NFTY vice president. He recently attended a NFTY-STR forum on systemic racism hosted by Temple Sinai of North Dade.
Closer to home, Schmidt is on the Temple Beth Am Social Justice Teen Fellowship.
At school he’s on the robotics team where he has been an officer and design lead. He’s also a member of the National Honor Society, Mu Alpha Theta, Zeta Omicron, the Computer Science Honor Society, the National English Honor Society, Rho Kappa, the Spanish National Honor Society, the Cum Laude Society, and the Science Honor Society.
He plans to major in engineering in college because he wants to be able to continue projects like Save Woofie!.
He got first place in the Congressional App Challenge last year for developing an Automated External Defibrillator app that locates portable defibrillators in a building.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
