Great Ideas Honored At Batchelder Award Ceremony

NORTH READING, MA - If every great invention starts with a simple idea, Batchelder School third graders proved the future is in good hands. Toshiba was present Thursday morning to honor the North Reading elementary school's young minds, including its second straight regional winner, in the 2019 ExploraVision contest.

As teacher Bill Cassell explained, the goal of the ExploraVision competition is to "imagine and invent something no one else has ever though of." The students clearly listened.

While it may be years before technology catches up to the student's ideas, here's a guess that parents and teachers assembled in the cafeteria agree it'll be worth the wait. The Regional winner, one of 24 nationwide out of 5,000 entrants, was the Cortex-Controlled Chair (C3). Team members Connor Downey, Rami El-Sheikh, Hendrik Schomp, and Harry Wells conceived the wheelchair of the future. The mobil smart chair has all the features of a wheelchair but with four-wheel drive that allows it to go up and down stairs. The chair will also be controlled by messages from the user's mind.

The C3 was named the best primary level entry (grades k-3) in the New England and New York Region. Cassell was the team's coach, along with parent leaders Margot Schomp and Joyce Wells.

The rest of the recognition ceremony was filled with proof that elementary school is more than just books and recess. There were four projects given Honorable Mention Awards, meaning they were judged to be among the top 10 percent of entries.

The first was the Aller-D!, an allergy defender that combined science with technology to instantly determine if a food is safe for someone to eat. The idea came from students Brendan Dandaneau, Sebastian Garvin, and Vinnie Higgins.

Another Honorable Mention went to the Blizzard Beast, a battery driven snow plow that uses software, GPS, radar, and a scanning camera to operate autonomously under difficult winter conditions. That idea came from students Alannah Dynan, Charlotte McEntee, and Shyanne Thomas.

A third HM went to the Today Toilet. Using cutting-edge technology the toilet would turn waste into useful products like fresh water, fertilizer, and energy. That idea belonged to the team of Avery Carroll, Bryce Sharp, Bianca Villisanti, and Dhyan Vijaianand.

The final HM award went to the WOW Writer, a tool that slides onto any writing instrument, and using motion detectors, it would analyze pencil grip, letter formation, and words being written, which is uploaded for analysis and review by teachers and parents. WOW was produced by Alissia Amara, Charlie Bebchick, Annie Burton, and Zachary Fleming.

There were other entrants, all of which pushed creativity and left you wondering ... why didn't I think of that? There was a brain cancer removing nanobot, a door frame insert that scans and analyzes the physical and mental health of those who pass through, a system to make and store oxygen on Mars, and drones that can identify, pick up, and dispose of trash and recyclables.

As the third grader's projects were honored, the school's second grade class looked on. It will be their turn to change the world next year.