Student Work

Two kids appear at a table in an elementary school library.

Child 1: The homeless helper is the name and the design.

Text reads: Each year, the MyMachine Foundation challenges students across the globe to creat their “dream machines.”

Child 2: It is a wagon that’s pulled by someone that has snaps, bottled water, umbrellas, operation glue, Nintendo’s switches, volleyball, and a net.

Text reads: In 2022, four 4th-grade students from Unionville, Indiana, won best overall design with their machine.

Child 2: This invention makes homeless people happy. It also gives them things they need and ways to have fun.

Text reads: This is their story.

Exterior of Unionville. Kids file out of a school bus. Interior shots of the school.

Principal over the announcement: Today is a new day.

Kids repeat: It’s going to be a great day.

Kids raise their hands in a classroom.

A teacher speaks to the interviewer in a classroom.

Shawn Fisher, teacher, Unionville Elementary: Well, I really like the Maker Challenge, that it’s a hands-on opportunity.

Kids are shown in class.

Fisher: And it kinda puts all the kids on a level playing ground no matter where they are academically. Us teachers are really encouraged to step back and let the kids take ownership on these projects. Specifically, the homeless helper was really cool. That was completely kid-driven and an idea that they came up with.

A child speaks to the camera.

Tacora: I made pretty much the whole main idea. Aubrey and Trevor and Keegan were supporting details.

Fisher speaks to the camera.

Fisher: So the four students were Aubrey, Tacora, Keegan, and Trevor.

The four kids are shown together in a classroom with their names written in white text.

Tacora speaks to the camera alone.

Tacora: Trevor, I don’t know a lot about him. He likes dirt bikes.

Trevor speaks to the camera: Pretty much any dirt bike slash ATV slash monster truck slash anything with two or four wheels.

Tacora speaks to the camera.

Tacora: Aubrey, very kind and funny and my best friend. The two are pictured on the bus.

Camera shows Trevor. Trevor: A car, a four wheeler, dirt bike, if you had, or a snowmobile.

Tacora speaks to the camera.

Tacora: Keegan has a dog. That’s about all I know about Keegan.

Trevor is shown.

Trevor: Except for like a bike, anything motorized.

Tacora is shown in a classroom.

Tacora: I got a flamingo!

Fisher speaks to the camera.

Fisher: She has a very strong personality and very strong opinions and she’s not afraid to voice them. So especially when it comes to the homeless helper, I think that’s something that she felt really passionate about, just knowing that that is a problem in our community.

Camera scans the kids outdoors.

Fisher: When things, when things are not right, even on the playground, she’s one that stands up for others. She doesn’t like conflict. And so she worked really well with her team and included everybody.

Trevor speaks to the camera.

Trevor: I think it really started out as an idea in Tacora’s head, really I don’t know, because I’m not Tacora’s brain.

Aubrey speaks to the camera. The design is shown.

Aubrey: We started off, Tacora drew just like this picture of just like a teal cart. It had a sign that said: You can help the homeless, had a mushroom on it, and everything. And we ended up doing some little changes on it. We added more mushrooms.

Fisher speaks to the camera.

Fisher: They had the best teamwork of all the groups. And they really listen to one another and, and rooted each other on and really included everybody. They were really great about that.

The kids are seen working together.

Trevor: Maybe we can add on everyone’s ideas into one thing on the homeless helper, so that not only one person could be satisfied, everyone would be satisfied.

Fisher speaks to the camera.

Fisher: Four designs, one from our school. And then the homeless helper went on to win within the whole corporation.

Text: MyMachine Award Ceremony. Kids file into a lecture hall.

Emcee: Every year we partner with different organizations to make this possible. And this year we partnered with Indiana University and the Hoosiers Hills Career Center for the My Machine Challenge. Best overall idea, prototype and story is awarded to the homeless helper from Unionville Elementary School.

The awards are seen. Kids collect them and pose for photos.

Tacora: It felt very good to be honored for something we made.

The four kids are seen in a classroom.

Aubrey: In our classroom, we have yoga balls and I jump very high, very high. You can ask people that sat next to me.

Trevor: There’s no words.

Exterior of Fine Arts Building at IU. Students walk through the halls.

Fine arts students speak to the camera.

Melissa Wilson. IU design student: Once we saw the ideas, we basically thought, Wow, this is a bit much. So we sent them a powerpoint talking about the hierarchy of needs.

Graphics are shown. Wilson speaks to the camera.

Wilson: Just explaining that if we are working as the user being the homeless population, they may need the basic essentials first. There were all these different jobs that were cute or kind of realistic things and also kind of unrealistic things.

The kids are seen.

Trevor: Money guns with like $10,000 in fake cash.

Wilson: Like traveling houses, and tennis courts.

Tacora: Water, cheeze-its. Video games and Xboxes.

Keegan: Some dinosaurs.

Wilson: There were a bunch of like really expensive toys.

Trevor: I was kinda going through a nacho cheese phase. So I thought, why can’t we just put nacho cheese in it?

Camera flashes back to design students.

Daria Johnson, IU design student: I didn’t expect them to be as involved as they really were.

The classroom interior is seen.

Teacher: Do you guys want to do a drumroll too, that would be kind of fun.

Design students are seen again.

Hannah Jones, IU design student: I think the children are extremely passionate about their design. They’re super into it.

The kids are seen working in class.

Jones: I mean they were constantly asking questions or like giving us pointers, like they were telling us what to do and they knew exactly what they wanted in their design.

The four kids are seen in a classroom.

Aubrey: So they added like this bed sort of thing and they made it so that you would give it to a homeless person for the night. Our idea was like there would be drawers and you go around and give homeless people stuff.

Wilson: They were obsessed with mushrooms, which is just like the funniest thing about the whole project.

Kids all speak about the mushrooms. I liked the mushrooms, mushrooms, mushrooms, mushroom. Mushrooms, mushroom.

Tacora: I feel like the the main idea of art was mushrooms.

Jones: I was going to make a joke about how like none of our designs, we never have to consider gravity, so just working through shelter that can fold out and also not crumble was really difficult.

Wilson: Yeah, I definitely feel content with what we gave. I think we put a lot of work into it like holy cow.

Design students are seen working on the project.

Wilson: And we worked through a lot of different scenarios and I think this is definitely the best one. We finished our schematics yesterday, and it was a really good feeling.

Exterior of the city.

Text: Hoosier Hills Career Center.

Mark Scranton, teacher at Hoosier Hills: I suppose there are some concerns with maybe needing a break of some kind on it, but I mean, I think the wheels I think it’ll push it easily with the proper wheels on it.

The kids are pictured.

Tacora: The wheels were a big pain.

Trevor: I mean, it worked, it just didn’t stay on the best.

Tacora: It wouldn’t work or stand up at all.

Trevor: It went OK. It was not fine.

People work on the project in Hoosier Hills workshop.

Man: So this lid was cut before this was made so this needs to be trimmed down so that way it will fit inside still. That’s what we’re working on right now.

Blueprints are seen.

Man: I’d say the plan, at least the blueprints, they’ve been pretty helpful. There’s some things we’ve had to modify it to try to get to work the way it should. But for the most part it’s worked out well.

Fisher speaks to the camera.

Fisher: This is the first time that Unionville has actually made it as a winner.

The lecture hall presentation is seen.

Fisher: Just being able to have IU come in and take their prototype further and then further. And now to hear that Hoosiers Hills is making the actual dream machine of the homeless helper is so cool and the kids are really excited about it. So this is the first time we’ve been able to take it this far.

Exterior of a school. Kids get on a school bus.

Teacher: Oh my. OK. Let me call.

Kids sit together in the bus,

Tacora: Oh, there are a lot of homeless people out there and they just don’t have anywhere to go. And these people don’t have food, water, entertainment, a home.

Trevor: Somewhere to sleep. And a natural disaster that can happen, they won’t have any shelter or any place to stay dry.

Keegan: A flood that you could go home, they’re just out there in the cold whether it’s raining or snowing.

Aubrey: They don’t have a house. They don’t have a warm bed or anything.

The interior of a classroom. Leader presents to a room.

Pillar: I would like to welcome everybody that’s here: parents, families, teachers, friends, and all of our friends from Indiana University that are here together. This is the homeless helper. Again, what an idea of what a, what a, what an aware concept. Very, very neat idea. Who was the homeless helper inventor? All right, so why don’t you come up here and help me?

The team rises from its seats and go to the front of the room. The project is unveiled.

Pillar: So all right. So you guys stand over here and nope, no peaking. OK. Are you ready to see the homeless helper? Whoa.

Kids dance and give peace signs to the camera. They file out of the building and return to the school bus.

Trevor: I really hope that we can use it to help local homeless people.

The four kids are seen.

Trevor: And then maybe build 50 more to have at least one in every state. And the goal is to be like a farmer where you start off small and then go really big.

Kids speak to the camera.

Tacora: If it was, if it was a perfect world, there would not be homeless people. That’s a perfect world.

Aubrey speaks to the camera.

Aubrey: They’d get enjoyment out of it and they’d feel better than how they did before they had the cart when they didn’t have it.

Trevor: Homeless people just have stuff that they need they’ll have a cart to store it all, as well as a place they can sleep, so they don’t have to sleep on the ground which we all know isn’t comfortable.

Tacora: Well, we’re giving them food, water, a place to sleep, and support for dog or cat or hamster.

Trevor: Just by doing small things, it can expand to be hopefully the whole world.

Tacora: That’s all I have to say.

Black screen. Text reads: Directed by Jose-Luis Amsler, Josph Ermey, Duke Moosbrugger. Aubrey Kegan Tacora Trevor. Shawn Fisher. Melissa Wilson, Hannah Jones, Daria Johnson. Mark Scranton, Dave Pillar. A special thanks to Susanne Schwibes. John Racek. Indiana Universityt. Hoosier Hills Career Center. Bloomington South High School. Unionville Elementary. MyMachine Foundation. The homeless helper.