“Tiny Mic: Big Designs,” the innovative digital video series produced by Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB) Education in partnership with Georgia Tech’s K-12 InVenture Prize, won an Emmy Award on June 14 in the category of Children/Youth Teen Short Form Content at a ceremony in Atlanta. 

In the series, GPB Education producer and host Ashley Mengwasser talks to K-12 student inventors from all over Georgia about their inspiration and design process. In humorous, short interviews, the series highlights both the playfulness of inventing and the serious challenges these inventions seek to address. Mengwasser, an 11-time Emmy Award-winning host, writer and executive producer with fifteen years’ experience in television, was the creative visionary behind Tiny Mic: Big Designs.  

“We were the fourth award announced on Emmy night, just a few minutes into the program,” Mengwasser said. “When Host Brian Unger read ‘Tiny Mic, Big Designs,’ Georgia Public Broadcasting, I sprang up to hug my teammates Mary Anne and Ashlyn. We were delighted …Tiny Mic had done it! Our effusive gratitude to Georgia Tech’s K-12 InVenture Prize, and effusive praise to the participating K-12 students, teachers, and schools who share the win.” 

All of the featured students were participants in the K-12 InVenture Prize program offered at their local schools.  

“Don’t be surprised if our jubilation ignites more content. The original 32 episodes prove that invention education content can compete in the big leagues,” Mengwasser continued.  “Encore, anyone? I’m not retiring this tiny microphone yet.”  

“Superhero Ashley and the team at Georgia Public Broadcasting hit it out of the park with ‘Tiny Mic, Big Designs,’ an inspiring, funny, and uplifting series of reels featuring student inventors from all over the state,” said Roxanne Moore, Principal Research Engineer and longtime advocate for invention education. “The series highlights what happens when we ask students to invent instead of just following directions. Starting with a focus on solving everyday problems and making the world a better place, these students are learning critical skills that will serve them for the rest of their lives.” 

K-12 InVenture Prize Director Danyelle Larkin said that she hopes that winning an Emmy Award will bring even more recognition to the program as it expands throughout Georgia and beyond. “We are growing and bringing even more student inventors and teachers from across the state into the fold, so it’s a very exciting time to be involved as we envision our next steps in taking invention education beyond Georgia. This video series is a great tool to share our work, so we just couldn’t be happier with the recognition,” 

The K-12 InVenture Prize, based in the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC) in Georgia Tech’s College of Lifetime Learning, challenges kindergarten through high school students to identify real-world problems and design novel solutions through analysis, creativity, and the engineering design process.  

Watch all 32 episodes: https://www.gpb.org/education/tiny-mic.  

For more information on the K-12 InVenture Prize curriculum and competition, and to join for 2026, please visit: https:/k12inventure.gatech.edu.  

—Randy Trammell, CEISMC Communications