Lego Robotics tackles car/deer crashes

CHILLICOTHE — It's a problem that all drivers fear, particularly in rural areas like much of Ross County.

It's dark, your eyes are on the road and suddenly you see movement out of your peripheral vision. It's a deer or dog or possum, and there's no way to avoid it. You brace for the impact.

Members of Bishop Flaget School's Lego Robotics team, the Techno Brick Rats, aren't old enough to get behind the wheel and experience that feeling yet, but they decided to tackle the issue as their real-world problem for regional qualifying competition late last month in Columbus.

Meryl Haller, Avery Brown, Mason Brown, Ryan Blum, Jake Byrd, Alexis Detillian, Alyssa Dudley, Will Fleck, Vincent Haller and Emma Powers decided that to meet requirements of this year's competition theme, Animal Allies, they would research the problem of animal/vehicle collisions. Through that research, they discovered data to support that one of every 71 crashes is deer-related and can cause an average of $5,000 in vehicle damage.

"Because of the frequency of deer-related accidents, the students were planning a sensitive heat detecting device and wide-angle cameras which would be mounted to the top of a car and on the sides to detect the presence of deer in front or to the side of a car as it moves down the highway," said Bishop Flaget Principal Laura Corcoran. "The sensors would sound an alarm and the dash screen will display the location of the animal. It would also automatically begin to stop the vehicle, thus avoiding the collision."

The team was successful in its research and in meeting the core values of the project, but ran into some issues with the robots with which it was working on another part of the competition.

"We spent the money that we raised last year to purchase new computers for programming, but now we are in need of new robots," said assistant coach Sue Blum. "The ones that we have are more than 10 years old and in dire need of replacement. Unfortunately, new ones cost at least $500 each."

Bishop Flaget competes in the First Lego League, a program designed to encourage innovative thinking and stress the role of science and technology in everyday life. A challenge based on a real-world scientific topic is released each year with three parts to it, including a robot game, the research and innovation challenge and the core values.

In the robot game, teams of up to 10 students in grades 3 through 8 must program a robot to score points by moving across a themed playing field. In the innovation challenge they design a solution to a problem they have identified, and they must demonstrate how well they follow the league's core values. Past challenges have dealt with nanotechnology, climate, quality of life for those with disabilities and transportation issues.

Students at Bishop Flaget are chosen to take part in competition based on their attendance at weekly meetings and practices, knowledge or skill with the robots and programming, and participation in project development. Dianne Cryder is the head coach for the team.

The school is welcoming donations from anyone interested in helping with the purchase of new robots for the team. Anyone interested can contact Corcoran at 740-774-2970.