Lake Mary student designs part for ballot printers, saves Seminole County thousands

Lake Mary High School student solves Seminole County ballot printer issue

Seminole County elections staff discovered a printer issue that would have cost the county thousands of dollars to fix. A Lake Mary High School student came up with a solution. 

LAKE MARY, Fla. - With local elections coming up in August, Seminole County is already making sure everything is ready to go.

But when a small issue popped up with some of the county’s printers, the solution came from an unexpected place: a student at Lake Mary High School.

The county uses about 150 printers during election season. Officials said a small plastic piece inside some of those ballot-on-demand printers kept breaking or falling out during transport.

Because the manufacturer does not sell the part separately, the county would have needed to replace full trays at about $125 each. With around 150 printers, costs could add up quickly.

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What they're saying:

"One of my senior IT techs came to me and said, we have a challenge. We have a computer part in our printers, our ballot on demand printers, that gets broken or falls out of our printers in transport," said Amy Pennock, Seminole County elections supervisor. "So it’s a cost savings of about $16,000 to replace this part in all of our 150 printers that we have on hand."

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How Lake Mary High got involved

Pennock said an IT staff member suggested reaching out to a school with a CAD or manufacturing program for help.

"So he said, 'Hey, let’s take this to a school that has a program, a CAD program, a manufacturing program. Let’s see if they want to get some hands-on experience,'" Pennock said.

Pennock contacted Chris Endress, a technical design teacher at Lake Mary High School.

"She said, ‘can you do this?’ And I said, ‘we can try,’" Endress said.

Student solves it in one class period

Endress said he initially planned to have four or five students work on creating a 3D version of the part. But Ethan Sigal, a sophomore, completed the project in one class period.

"I spent a good bit measuring and I got it done, you know, measured down to hundredths of an inch," Sigal said. "I wanted to make sure it was done right because a small part and end of the period I had like a computer mock-up."

Teachers said the finished piece fit immediately.

"He got in one shot," Endress said. 'We popped it in there, and it was like, wow, that works."

What's next:

The county now plans to partner with the school to repair all of the printers with the new part.

Other counties have also shown interest in buying the parts from the class. 

School leaders hope more organizations reach out to create opportunities for students while helping fund the program.