WHITEHALL, Ohio (WCMH) — Students at Whitehall Yearling High School noticed there was a tardiness problem at school, and a group of senior engineering students came up with a solution that garnered an international award. 

High school students at Whitehall Yearling are not bused to school, and some of them don’t have a reliable way to get there. The engineering students thought a scooter hub may be the solution. 

For their senior project, the students came up with the Orbit Rack, which holds eight electric scooters vertically. 

“The plan is, at the school, we’re going to have a bunch of these that can hold every scooter we have, and throughout the community, we’re going to have little hot spots so they can take it from here, park it there and walk a short distance home,” student Natinael Fisahaye said. 

The students said they noticed many of their classmates were five to ten minutes late for school every day. Without buses, some kids live too far to walk and don’t have a good way to get to class. 

“They wanted to be in the program, and they thought it was a good idea,” Fisahaye said. “It was a good solution to the problem that we were having.” 

The students designed and built the Orbit Rack themselves, figuring out how to make it work, ordering parts, and 3D printing some components. 

For their hard work, the group received a Ciena Solutions Challenge Sustainability Award, earning $750 for Whitehall’s engineering program. 

“It just goes to show that one simple idea or one small idea can lead to something huge like this,” student Kodjo Kouassi said. 

Engineering Design teacher Pat Danko said he’s very proud of his students. 

“It’s really cool to see them actually take that next step in that next initiative and reach out to these local governments and local businesses to partner with to help them with some of these things,” Danko said. 

Besides the award, the city of Whitehall liked the Orbit Rack, and now the district’s superintendent and Whitehall’s mayor are in talks to figure out how to implement it across the community. 

“We’ve got everything developed right now, and we’re just trying to get in contact with more developers, with more people that got resources so we can somehow put this into the community,” Kouassi said. 

The students said the goal is to have scooters in Whitehall and the Orbit Racks up and running sometime next school year. 

For more information about the Orbit Rack, click here to visit the school’s website.