Schools

Reston-Area LEGO Team Headed To States

Group worked on task to help meat stay fresh.

A group of Reston-area students will be headed to this weekend's FIRST LEGO League Virginia State competition in Harrisonburg.

The 2011 task for the more than 200,000 9 to 16 year olds worldwide was to improve the quality of food by finding ways to prevent food contamination.

Students  explored the topic of food safety and examine the possible points of contamination our food encounters – from exposure to insects and creatures, to unsterile processing and transportation, to unsanitary preparation and storage – then find ways to prevent or combat these contaminates.

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They then  built, tested, and programmed an autonomous robot using LEGO® MINDSTORMS® NXT to solve a set of Food Safety missions as well as research, develop, and share their innovative food safety solutions 

"Our team studied food safety issues concerning beef," said team member Kenny Chen, an eighth-grader at Kilmer Middle School. "We took a field trip to a local farmer's market in Reston and one of the vendors shared with us concern over temperature. It is difficult to monitor the temperature of beef (cooled on ice packs) at the same time as selling to customers."

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"If the beef gets too warm (above 41 F) dangerous bacteria can grow. That is especially important in the summer when the weather is very hot. In lots of hot countries, this is an issue all year long."

The solution:  a thermometer that signals when the temperature is too warm (beep or flashing light) and record the temperature for inspectors.

"We built a prototype from our Mindstorm NXT robot and sensors," says Chen. "Using our 'Therm-Alarm,' vendors don't have to monitor the temperature. If the alarm signals, they can add more ice packs. That means their customers feel better about buying their beef in the summer months."

Team members are Gloria Chen - Langston Hughes Middle School (7th grader); William Chen - Forest Edge Elementary School (5th grader);  Ilana Levy -- Forest Edge Elementary School (5th grader);  Raphael Chambers -- Sunrise Valley Elementary School (5th grader);  Sam Chen – Hunters Woods Elementary School (6th grader); Kenny Chen --Joyce Kilmer Middle School (8th grader);  Kelly Ho -- Forest Edge Elementary School (6th grader); Christopher Yuan -- Colvin Run Elementary School (5th grader)

Coaches :  Pei-lin Chiang(head coach), David Levy(coach), Juliette Rossant (coach), Arianna Chen (mentor) and Joshua Levy (mentor).


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