Super Awesome Sylvia Goes to Washington

Science

Stett Holbrook

Stett Holbrook is editor of the Bohemian, an alternative weekly in Santa Rosa, California. He is a former senior editor at Maker Media.

He is also the co-creator of Food Forward, a documentary TV series for PBS about the innovators and pioneers changing our food system.

View more articles by Stett Holbrook

April 23rd, 2013 6

24sylvia-span-articleLarge — President Obama takes a liking to Super Awesome Sylvia’s robot-rendered watercolor painting of the White House. [via Stephen Crowley/The New York Times]

Super Awesome Sylvia is one of our favorite young makers here at MAKE. Her passion for making is infectious. So it was a real thrill for us and makers everywhere when we learned she was selected to go to the White House Science Fair yesterday to show off her WaterColorBot and meet the man in charge: President Obama.

“I shook his hand twice!” she told the New York Times. “And he picked up a printed version of the White House logo that my robot did.”

Watch coverage of the White House Science Fair here. Sylvia appears at 31:55.

Getting to Washington from her home in California was expensive, but like any good maker she turned to crowdfunding to help cover her costs. She surpassed her $1,442 goal on GoFundMe. Go, Sylvia! See you at Maker Faire.

Check out more of Super Awesome Sylvia on MAKE.

6 thoughts on “Super Awesome Sylvia Goes to Washington”

Sherry Huss says:

April 24th, 2013 at 7:03 am

Yay Sylvia! Would love to see your photos and hear all about your visit! So very cool!
Mark Frauenfelder says:

April 24th, 2013 at 3:26 pm

I’m very proud of you, Sylvia! You did an awesome job explaining your project to our President.
Andrew Terranova says:

April 29th, 2013 at 6:01 am

You did d a great job. I’m very impressed with your composure when speaking with President Obama. Way to go!