Plainwell student recognized for ‘Carpoon’

By Daniel Pepper
Interim Editor

Jacob Markle poses in his fifth grade classroom at Starr Elementary School in Plainwell. Markle was a runner-up in a national invention contest hosted by Popular Science. (Photo provided)

Most people seem to hear about Asian carp invading the Great Lakes ecosystem and think it’s a problem.

Some look at it as something they want the state or federal government to solve and others listen, but don’t know what to do.

An elementary student in Plainwell took things further than most when he sat down and tried to design a machine that would help.

Jacob Markle drew up plans for this Carpoon last year and it has been chosen as an honorable mention in a national young inventors contest held by Popular Science magazine. He was one of two runners up in the nation in the elementary school category. The contest required a schematic drawing and explanation of how the device would work.

Markle, who attends Starr Elementary School, is in fifth-grade this year, teacher Lisa Wininger said.

“Last year he was in my fourth-grade science class and we talked about invasive species,” Wininger said. “He went home and invented something.”

The Carpoon design is for a robotic machine that would seek out Asian carp through the use of a video camera and facial recognition-type software. It would be able to tell an Asian carp from another fish. When it recognizes an Asian carp, it attacks with a harpoon.

Wininger said she was so impressed she decided to find Markle a contest to enter.

“I looked for a contest for young inventors and I found one,” Wininger said.

She said Markle’s attempt was very inspiring.

“We sit here and think about our kids falling behind in science, but when you think about a fourth-grader who sees a problem and then goes home and designs something to try to come up with a solution, I think that’s pretty impressive,” Wininger said.

Markle said he’d learned about Asian carp and the damage scientists believe they would do to the Great Lakes ecosystem.

“Basically, they’re terrible,” Markle said. “They completely wipe it out.

“That would be terrible. I like fish, I like nature.”

Putting the Carpoons in the canals that connect Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River system would be a better solution, he said, than using electric barriers or poison.

“It’s a completely non-polluting way to get rid of them,” Markle said. “(Other solutions) could pollute the water and everything else trying to get rid of them.”

He likes to spend time in the outdoors and went on a camping trip to North Manitou Island with his family recently.

“I like to fish,” Markle said. “I think it’s pretty fun to see how many I can catch and throw back.

“I don’t like to eat fish, though.”

He said he hadn’t consciously thought about following the scientific method he’d learned about in school.

“I guess I didn’t think about that,” Markle said. “I did make a hypothesis, though.”

Wininger said they found out about the contest results in August and that it should be in the magazine within the next few months.

Contact Dan Pepper at dpepper@allegannews.com or at (269) 673-5534 or (269) 685-5985.