"It should have worked", the surgeon whispered desperately after his patient did not survive the lung transplant and died on the table. Merrily, this was only a skit that the 4-H Robotics team presented at a Robotics tournament in the East Bay.
This presentation was part of an ambitious project that the San Bruno 4-H club started at the beginning of 2010. Eight members, aged 9 to 14, worked hard to design and build a Lego robot, to program the robot to complete complex missions like inserting a (Lego) pacemaker into a (Lego) heart, or transporting important drugs to a patient area on a competition table.
Worldwide, thousands of teams participate in similar tournaments organized under the umbrella of FIRST – FLL (FIRST Lego League). This season the challenge was themed "Body Forward" and robot missions and research projects were concerned with bio medicine and bio engineering. The teams compete at tournaments and are evaluated on four distinct criteria:
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- Robot design and programming
- A Robot game where the robot needs to complete complex missions
- Teamwork – how well do the kids work together
- A scientific research project
The team, dubbed "It Should Have Worked," competed very well at a tournament in Dublin in the East Bay on November 21st. They received very high marks, especially on the research project. Their chosen theme was how complications of lung transplants can be reduced so that the survival rate of lung recipients would increase significantly. The team researched data available on the web and in medical publications, and discussed ideas with a renowned transplant surgeon and researcher on the East Coast. The proposed solution is to grow new lungs from cells of one own lungs, thus reducing the probability of rejection.
The robot game was such fun. There are two competition tables next to each other, and two teams competed at the same time to complete as many missions as possible within a 2 minute 30 seconds round. The robot has to snag a patent before the other team gets it, has to attach bionic eyes to a certain area on the table, or has to repair bone damage by applying a cast.
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After a long day of presentations, applying last minute fixes to programs, cheering fellow teams and watching their different approaches to accomplishing the robot missions, the 4-H team drove home tired but energized. And, they decided to participate again in the 2011 FLL robot season with the challenge theme "Food Factor".
Team members were:
Alice Foy
Nina Schoener
Samantha Rozal
Alexander Davis
Darren Diep
Peter Schoener
Peter Schafhalter
Richard Schafhalter
Dominique Foy (Coach)
Claus Schafhalter (Coach)
The San Bruno 4-H Club offers "hands-on" activities for youth ages 7-19. For more information on joining 4-H go to http://cesanmateo.ucdavis.edu/4-H_Program/ or call 650-583-7249.
Authors: Peter Schafhalter, Richard Schafhalter
Photos: Alvin Rozal, Ingeborg Schafhalter
