HOUSTON – Houston high school students taught the city a thing or two about fixing its pothole problem.
Mayor Sylvester Turner was invited to Kipp Sunnyside High School on Friday for a battle of the fixes -- the city's vs. the students.'
Turner made fixing potholes a major platform in his election campaign and launched an initiative to repair them 24 hours after drivers called to report them.
He has his heart in the right place, but do the pothole-fixing crews have the right stuff to do the job?
"We use the co-patch they use now with our own formula mixed so that it's more sturdy and lasts longer," student Brea Mourning said.
Practical engineering students developed their own mixture to repair potholes.
They created the mixture and a robot after earning a $7,500 grant from MIT.
They say their mix is better than what the city uses.
"We hope the mayor takes the formula and we also hope to get this Houston problem fixed," senior Candice Fleming said.
The students actually pitted their product against the solution used by the city and one from Home Depot.
They gave the mayor a hammer -- and get this: cracks were produced in the city's batch and the one from Home Depot -- but the students' mixture held up.
"I was very impressed. We want to try what they've done on some of the streets of the city of Houston and fill some of the potholes," Turner said.