Senior Project Spotlight: Joe Martin

Lake City High School graduate Joe Martin’s senior project looked at the feasibility of an invention that would shoot sticky notes to coworkers in an office setting. 

The fanciful idea led to exploring the creative process and starting over during the testing phase when the design failed.  

Martin worked with Alan Woodmansee at North Idaho College to brainstorm parts of the process and although he ultimately wasn’t able to demonstrate a working 3D-printed prototype, he learned about engineering along the way.  

A panel of experts and business leaders listened to several student presentations and provided advice and feedback on their projects. Drawing from his years of experience, Alan Rich offered Joe a few words of wisdom from his Silicon Valley days.  

“The critical thinking was in there, don’t get discouraged if you weren’t able to complete it. The most important steps of a project are figuring out what doesn’t work,” Rich said. “I’ve worked on thousands of projects in Silicon Valley and every single one had a thousand revisions.”