SHARON, Pa. – A Sharon Tiger Techs robotics team recently competed against 83 other teams from around the world and received the Innovation Project Finalist Award at the Western Edge Invitational in Long Beach, Calif.
The award recognizes a team that uses diverse resources for its innovation project to help it gain a comprehensive understanding of its problem; has a creative, well-researched solution; and effectively communicates its findings to judges and the community.
The award recognized the Sharon team for its project, Scuba Pal, a scuba tank transmitter that auditorily reads oxygen levels to the user/diver. The team improved its prototype over the past eight months and met with several experts, including a computer science teacher, a mechanical engineer, scuba divers, a scuba store owner, the Hermitage Fire Department and others. The team secured a provisional patent for its device with the help of Robert Sovesky of K and L Gates, Pittsburgh.
In addition to its innovation project, the team also competed with its robot on a robot table game and participated in an alliance robot competition. The team designed, built and programmed a Lego Spike Prime robot to complete tasks autonomously on a themed playing field. The team competed in three matches and came in 11th out of 83 teams.
The robotics team, which includes students from fourth through ninth grades in the Sharon City School District, is part of the First Lego League organization. The team is under the leadership of Dave Tomko and Kelly Roys and is funded by sponsors and the school district.
Pictured at top: Front row, from left, are Leah Crytzer, Sophie Nespor, Luca Paoletta, Logan Patek and Roman Adamo. Back row, from left, are Olivia Totin, Ian Connelly, Jacob Prelerson, Jasper Stanisky and Camille Klaric.