Tucsonan Mira Frenkel and her teammate Brendon Villalobos didnβt walk away with the $1 million prize on the βAmericaβs Greatest Makersβ television contest, but they made it to the finals and earned $100,000 in the process.
βObviously it was disappointing, but it was still a great experience,β Frenkel said by phone Wednesday, the day after the contest finale aired on TBS. βWe thought we had a good shot at the top prize.β
Frenkel, 20, and Villalobos billed themselves as βTeam HandsOnβ on the Intel-sponsored show and built a glove that translates the hand motions of American Sign Language into spoken words and text.
In addition to the prize money, she was able to bond with the four other teams that made it to the finals, much to the surprise of the production crew that usually sees television show contestants hating each other by the final round, she said.
Frenkel doesnβt know whatβs going to happen next with their invention.
In the meantime, she is going back to school to finish her undergraduate physics degree at Columbia University.
