Sharon Robotics Teams Win at Tournament
SHARON, Pa. – The Sharon Tiger Techs robotics teams finished in first and second place at the Erie First Lego League championships, a virtual event that took place Feb. 27,
Team Orange placed first overall and second with its robot, and Team Black placed second overall and first with its robot. The Sharon Tiger Techs consist of 18 students ranging from fifth to ninth grades in the Sharon City School District.
Over the past seven months, the teams have designed, built and programmed Lego Mindstorms EV3 robots to compete on a thematic playing field. The challenge was to program a robot autonomously for a 2.5-minute period to complete tasks related to the theme of athletics.
The tasks involved dropping a basketball into a hoop, flipping tires, activating a treadmill, and performing pull-ups on a bar.
In addition to the robot challenge, the teams developed innovative solutions to problems in their own community.
Team Black developed a mentoring website called Mentor2Move. The project enlisted the support of Sharon High School athletes to create short mentoring videos for elementary students. Nearly 30 athletes participated, allowing a majority of the varsity sports to be included.
The team consulted with several experts, including the assistant athletic director at Sharon High, a former Pittsburgh Steelers player, a website designer, a sports broadcaster at WFMJ-TV 21 and Sharon High School alumni.
Team Orange develop The Game, which stands for Getting Active and Mental Exercise, developing a working prototype to get the elderly more active.
The purpose of The Game is for the end user to extend and stretch their arms and legs to physically stay active. As a reward, the onboard memory system counts the button clicks and when the session has ended, bubbles are released.
The team consulted with an activity director, several physical therapists, a patent attorney, and a computer programmer and did test trials with elderly people from the community and from Clepper Nursing Home.
The robotics teams are part of the First LEGO League organization. First stands for “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.” The teams are under the leadership of Dave Tomko, Kelly Roys and Darcy Wiesen.
For information, go to TigerTechsRobotics.com.
Pictured: The Tiger Techs Robotics teams include (front row/left to right) Darcy Wiesen, Vincent Calla, Camryn Taneri, Kate Powell, Mary Brown, Ian Fischer, Naima Allen, Dani Currie, Henry Nowinski, Matthew Schimp, Trigg McMahon, (back row/left to right) Dave Tomko, Lucas Province, Keegan Widmyer, Warren Hackett, Bodhi Paknis, Kayden Moroney, Kaytlen Moroney, Tony Gaggini, John Stanek and Kelly Roys.
Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
