If you’ve ever had difficulty recognizing an emergency vehicle’s siren, a group of Glasscock Elementary students might have a solution for you. A team of GES students recently finished second in the state Student Technology Leadership Program (STLP) Minds on Innovation competition where they were tasked with developing an idea to address a problem or issue. Their idea focused on an automated system that would alert drivers of approaching emergency vehicles. And while second place in a statewide contest is impressive on its own, what’s just as noteworthy is that the team is likely the youngest ever involved in the competition.
While most teams are typically comprised of fourth and fifth graders, the GES team was made up of first graders Owen Roution, Paisley Lee, Finley Colvin, and Ross Gorley, and kindergartener Benedict Lanham.
The team was coached by GES teacher Angela Burke who said working with such young engineers presented its own set of challenges.
“It was by far the youngest team I’ve ever tried to coach,” Burke said with a laugh, adding that she worked with the students in shorter sessions given their tendency to have shorter attention spans. But that’s not to say Burke wasn’t thoroughly impressed with the young engineers.
“It’s a great group of students - they’re absolutely phenomenal and intelligent,” she said.
The group’s idea originated from Owen, Burke’s son, while on a trip to Florida. Burke was driving when an ambulance seemingly “came out of nowhere.”
“Owen asked ‘Why didn’t you hear it?’ and I told him it was difficult with so much traffic and he said, ‘Someone should come up with something to fix that,’” Burke explained.
Finding a way to make sure drivers are aware of emergency sirens then became the basis for the team’s Minds on Innovation entry.
The students interviewed local first responders, including EMTs and fire department officials, as well as the school district’s IT department as they gathered information and feedback. The team worked through issues with identifying sounds first by focusing on pitch or volume, but eventually focused more on the pattern of the sound.
For the competition, students weren’t required to completely create a solution, but instead were asked to focus more on the idea which they presented to a group of judges, which included professors of engineering from the University of Kentucky.
However, the group essentially created an entire working prototype. At her son’s request, Burke ordered the team a sound recognition device (shipped from New Zealand) which they configured to recognize siren sounds. It then communicated with a robotic component that would create lights and sounds to alert the driver. In fact, the only piece of the project lacking was some computer programming which would require knowledge of the high-level programming language Python.
The group worked on the project after school, and as Buke explained, it was very much a student-led project.
“It truly was their idea, and their work,” she said. “They kept experimenting until they found the answers [...] They knew what they wanted to do and then we’d figure out how to move ahead.”
Burke described her role as primarily “providing a space and allowing the opportunity for them to come together and then answering their questions.”
For her son Owen, the experience was as much about collaborating with his peers as it was about engineering a solution.
"I liked being able to get together with friends and build the robot," he said.
For his teammate Ross Gorley, finding out that the team had finished so highly ranked in the competition was a highlight of the experience.
"I loved hearing that we had won! We saw it on livestream. It was on the television too," he said.
The critical thinking involved in finding solutions to problems is exactly the type of experience Burke says students need and what she enjoys being a part of.
"I love the opportunity to work with STLP groups,” Burke said. “Kids need a place to create, work together, and challenge themselves. I wish there was a way students could get even more of these opportunities."
As for a repeat appearance in the competition, Burke said there’s no doubt the students want to be involved next year as well.
“They absolutely want to compete again,” she said.