MOUSE Corps Legacy Project

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The MOUSE Corps Program in NYC is an advanced leadership & technology after-school opportunity for amazing MOUSE Squad high-schoolers. Accepted MOUSE Corps students have the option to participate in one or both of two main focuses: Career Pathways & The Legacy Project.

Check out our 2 current Legacy Projects:

The MOUSE Corps Legacy Project is a student-led design and social action project aimed at applying students' skills and expertise to local and global needs through technology and multimedia. The Legacy Project culminates at the Emoti-con NYC Youth Media & Technology Festival in June.

Here's some of our favorite moments from last year's Legacy Group:



Previous Legacy Projects:

  • Immigration-Ville: A video game where players experience life as an immigrant moving to NYC.
  • YouCantBeatFree.org: A website with a Linux-Savings-Calculator that demonstrates how much schools could save by switching to free, open-source software.
  • One Laptop Per Child: a Legacy student created visual support documentation for the OLPC initiative's cross-cultural wiki
  • RescUSB: A bootable, open-source, user-friendly file-backup tool running on a USB drive to help novice computer users rescue their documents from a broken computer.

The Legacy Project has 3 Design Phases:

Inspiration, Ideation, Prototyping (November/Dec):

  • IDEO Workshops: Students learn the fundamentals of human-centered design at 2 after-school workshops with global design firm IDEO.

  • Inspiration: Students select a community or social need that is important to them. Then, conduct interviews and observations to try to find needs and issues that their Legacy Project could work to address.


    • Legacy students discuss the issue of hunger and social need while making 200 PB&J sandwiches for a local shelter.

  • Ideation: Students share stories from their observations looking for patterns and themes, then brainstorm project ideas.
  • Prototyping: Over the course of several after-school meetings, students create a series of rapid prototypes for their Legacy Projects.


A Legacy group reverse-prototypes Super Mario bros to help them learn how to prototype their own "Immigration-ville" game.

Implementation (Jan-April):

  • Tech Mentor Meetings: MOUSE will identify technology professionals who will work one-on-one with each Legacy Project group to help them learn the tech needed to turn their prototype into a reality.


    • A Legacy Project group works with robotics-expert Gloria.

    Presentation (May-June):

  • Prep Meetings: Student groups prepare a presentation with visual aids for the Emoti-Con Festival in June. Their presentations focus both on their final project (at whatever stage it is) and on their entire design process.
  • Emoti-Con Youth Media & Technology Festival: Student groups from MOUSE, Global Kids, Parsons, and the NY Public Library showcase their technology projects (in science-fair style) and hear from industry & academia professionals.


    • Eddy presents his Legacy Project, a website with a java-based calculator to show teachers how much money they could save if their switched to open-source software, at Emoti-Con.

    How to Apply

    Click here to fill out the MOUSE Corps Application!

    MOUSE Corps is a big commitment, to join you must be:

    • In 9th, 10th, 11th or 12th grade
    • Passionate & creative
    • A leader & a team player
    • Excited to learn about technology design
    • Able to attend meetings (most are after-school in Manhattan at 4:30pm on Tuesdays or Thursdays) - We'll hand out a schedule at the first meeting.