Alexis is featured in The STEM10, a 10-part mini-documentary series about diverse innovators in STEM.
Alexis spoke at The White House kick-off for the National Week of Making in 2015.
THE BAMBOO TRAVOIS
The Bamboo Travois is designed to provide basic transportation for the poorest areas in the world. It can transport the sick, elderly, or women in delivery distress to doctors, goods to market, and water to villages.
Originally intended for use in remote rural areas of Africa, the travois was designed with bamboo because it grows throughout Africa, is inexpensive, and strong.
The Bamboo Travois is a modern version of the travois, invented by the American Plains Indians.
EMERGENCY MASK POD
Forty percent of the 2,500 people killed in home structure fires each year in America die from smoke inhalation alone. The use of smoke masks has the potential to drastically reduce smoke inhalation fatalities, yet the vast majority of people do not have smoke masks in their homes.
When people are trapped on the upper stories of burning buildings, there often are neighbors and first responders, like police officers and EMTs, waiting below, unable to help. If they had the ability to deliver to the people stuck on the upper floors something to dampen the effects of the smoke, those people would be able to breathe safely while waiting for firefighters to rescue them.
Alexis invented a 3D-printed football-shaped "Emergency Mask Pod" that holds an Xcaper smoke mask, goggles, and a glow stick. The pod is easy to throw into open second-story windows.
The EM Pod was tested by local fire departments, and it works!
Smithsonian Magazine 4-minute profile video.
INVENTING 101
Our society has given people the misimpression that only geniuses are inventors. The reality is that inventing is part of being human. We all can do it.
Alexis is an advocate for adding "Inventing 101" classes to middle school curricula. Students would learn about teen inventors, the invention process, and classic "back to the drawing board" stories. They would be given an opportunity to make inventions of their own, either individually or in teams.
"Inventing 101" could be taught as an elective, much like "Mythology" is taught as a year-long elective in the schools where Alexis lives. As Alexis puts it, "Mythology is about stories that were never real and gods that were not real. Inventing is real. See my point?" Alexis loves mythology, actually, but she sees "Inventing 101" as more relevant to the needs of modern society.
If you are wondering why Alexis is so confident that anyone can invent, click here to see how America's corporations, along with the Smithsonian, proved this to her.
