Teen Girl Wins Marvel's Science and Tech Contest by Inventing a Seeing Eye Robot

A seeing eye dog with a sign on its back saying "do not pet me I am working"
Impact

California teen just won Marvel's Captain America: Civil War — Girls Performing the Future Challenge for creating a seeing eye robot to help the blind, proving that dogs aren't immune to the growing number of machines taking away jobs.

Contest winner Maia Dua is a 16-year-old student at River City High School in West Sacramento, California. Her robot beat out 1,000 other submissions, according to local news outlet KCRA

KCRA

Using a series of sensors, Dua's bot detects when a person using the seeing eye robot is about to run into something and beeps to them. The project took her a total of four days to build. 

KCRA

Dua wanted to build a tech-enhanced cane for the blind because of the price tag associated with dogs that lead the blind. It costs $50,000 to breed and train seeing eye dogs and connect them with visually impaired owners, according to the Guide Dog Foundation. By comparison, Dua estimates her machine would cost only $600.

KCRA

The Marvel Studio's competition was set up specifically to challenge young women to create an innovative project using science and technology. As the winner, Dua will now have the opportunity to intern at Marvel Studios. 

In the meantime, though, she'll go back to her regular life kicking ass on her high school wrestling team, because engineering and wrestling are among the things that women do best.