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12 year old makes shelter for the homeless with plastic, wire and packing peanuts

By Sebastian J — Filed under: News , Sustainability ,
 

Max Wallack, a 12 year old from Natick, have just won WGBH’s Design Squad “Trash to Treasure” design contest with his “Home Dome” invention, which is a shelter for the homeless, built with just plastic, wire and packing peanuts. The structure is in the form of a Mongolian yurt and includes a built-in bed.

For his winning design, Max won $10,000, a Dell laptop and a trip to Boston to see how his design becomes real. The “Home Dome” was selected as the winner innovation out of more than 1,000 contest submissions.

Seen at The Design Blog. Watch a video about the winner, after the break.YouTube Preview Image

 

10 comments »

M says:

Respect!!!

 
# February 28, 2009 at 03:16
Disco Bird says:

Thats not a geodesic dome, thats a truncated icosahedron. Carbon 60, the allotrope of carbon was just named after buckminster fuller because it had visual siminarities with the geodesic dome when in fact he was more about dividing up platonic solids and raising key points up to the sphere with was around them.

Still got to be said, incredible idea, and for a 12 year old. Love the construction method aswell very elegant.

 
# February 28, 2009 at 04:18
Arman says:

Cool! Congratulations!

 
# February 28, 2009 at 07:09
odris says:

just great

 
# February 28, 2009 at 21:46
sebastian says:

good example of “go for it”…

 
# March 1, 2009 at 19:41
One says:

Fantastic design, his imagination is very contemporary. This quality is hard to reproduce by adult designer…

 
# March 2, 2009 at 03:53
Bo says:

first sorry for my english ^-^
Not Bad for 12 years, but…
1.Measurements between shellparts – not good to keep warm.
2.What about waterproof?
3.What about wind that blow out this Home Dome?
4.Entrance – non-functional

 
# March 2, 2009 at 05:33
Steven says:

Let’s not kid ourselves. That is not a home. The homeless need so much more than fancy tents.

 
# March 2, 2009 at 12:31
Jai says:

Does it pack away in some ingenious way? does it take into account the daily needs and habits of the homeless? his age is wonderful and everything, but it seems like it’s distracting everyone from the fact that it may not fully address the needs of the individuals who may stand to benefit. Good work, good effort, don’t stop evolving the idea!

 
# March 6, 2009 at 05:16
Wojtek says:

Superb example of KIS (Keep It Simple) design.
Congrats!

 
# April 1, 2009 at 09:46

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