PEORIA MAGAZINE August 2023

Pontiac Township High School science teacher Paul Ritter

A PROUD PAPA Ritter takes a personal pride in such accomplishments and plans to expand CHSI with more partners in academia, business and industry, domestic and international. Not that there isn’t enough to keep him busy in Pontiac. He teaches a full load of science classes, coaches the Pontiac boys golf team and serves on the Livingston County Board. But CHSI appears to be a higher calling. “The reality is I get to do and be a part of something so amazing that could have a vast impact not only on the lives of these kids but for the rest of society. How do you not say that’s cool?” Ritter said. “This whole program is nothing more than coaching, right? It’s just at a higher level of stakes other than a score at the end of the game. It’s coaching for basically the rest of your life.”

“I’m not sure I would use the same slogan today,” said the 23-year-old Nannie, who works locally for a medical software company. “Since then, I’ve spent time in Washington, D.C., and Chicago, and Peoria definitely sucks the least. That’s how 14-year-old me wanted to approach the situation. I thought it was a good way to grab peoples’ attention.” It must have grabbed the attention of the CHSI judges, too. Eight years later, Nannie still waxes rhapsodic about the experience. “It helped me put ideas into action,” he said. “Everyone can come up with an idea. The program itself helped me to implement my idea and to speak on it. “I can’t emphasize enough how much the program did for me. … It was worth every second.” SOLVING REAL PROBLEMS Madeline Yoon might be discovering that now. The 17-year-old Yoon is an incoming senior at Barrington High School, in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. She and three classmates – Nishka Kolhe, Aidan Marchese and Grahme Valskis — had a top-five CHSI finish this year with a brush that can clean various types of cooking grills.

“Grilling was a hobby that we all shared,” said Yoon, who resides in Hoffman Estates. “We saw a problem in the industry, and we just wanted to solve it.” The DotekiBrush – “doteki” means “dynamic” in Japanese – consists of a durable handle and interchangeable heads. A standard brush is tailored for grated grills, according to Yoon, while a pumice head is geared for flattop grills. The interchangeable array includes a spatula and a carving fork. Yoon and her colleagues contacted a company in China to make a prototype. The CHSI presentation was more nerve wracking, Yoon suggested, but became easier as they received feedback from other students and potential investors. “By the end of it, it was a really fun experience,” Yoon said. “It helps with your public-speaking skills. So many people came around and asked what we were selling and wanted to buy right then and there.” That opportunity might happen relatively soon. In May, Yoon and friends received $20,000 from the Barrington business-incubator program. They competed in a national event in July in Chicago. Over the next year, mass manufacture and sales of the DotekiBrush might commence.

Nick Vlahos is a longtime Peoria print journalist and regular contributor to Peoria Magazine

JULY 2023 PEORIA MAGAZINE 25

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