Senior Project keeps minds and batteries charged
By Christopher Miller
When Zack Weaver was in his senior year at Central Mountain High School last year he witnessed a dire need for the student population: the ability to keep a phone charged throughout the school day.
“My high school senior project was to research and develop a business plan to present to my school administrators showing them that there is a need for this service in our school and how the students could benefit from it,” Zach told The Record.
The service Zack refers to is called FuelRod.
“It’s basically an exchange service,” he explained. “You initially buy a fully-charged FuelRod (which comes with phone charging cables, if you need them) which you can keep and charge, or, when the battery depletes you swap it out for a fresh, fully charged FuelRod.”
The service is available at Central Mountain High School for a $15 FuelRod Kit with unlimited “swaps” for fresh FuelRods for $1 a month.
Looking into it further, it appears there are over 40 FuelRod kiosks around Pennsylvania: a great deal of them at universities, major metropolitan airports, and big cities, and over 500 kiosks currently nationwide.
The kiosk, about the size of a vending machine, comes plug-in ready, is managed remotely, requires no wireless internet connection, operates at a low cost, and can be custom branded for their location.
“I started my project with a survey for the student body to gauge if it would be used or needed at the high school,” Zack explained. “After I received the results and contacted FuelRod through mutual friends, I started to put together my business plan to propose my idea to the administration.”
After school administration accepted his idea, Central Mountain High School became the first high school in the United States to have not just one, but two FuelRod kiosks.
Zack is now a first-year freshman student at Grove City College studying Electrical Engineering.
And as for Zack’s graduation project and presentation: he aced it. His successful project continues to keep phone batteries charged at Central Mountain High School.
