Fort Cherry teens win technology competition
The team with their prototypes and their first-place awards
This is the paper airplane the team had to build on the spot. Fort Cherry was the only team to land in the middle of the target and keep their secured egg intact.
A five-student team at Fort Cherry is moving to the next stage of the Governor’s STEM Competition. From left are sophomores Alec Rasel, Shelbie Curtis, Cameron Schaub, Emily Richard and Connor Ehrgood.
HICKORY – Not many teens set out to patent an invention, but a five-member group of sophomores at Fort Cherry High School is doing just that after winning the first leg of the Pennsylvania Governor’s STEM (Science Technology Engineering & Math) Competition.
They head to Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology in Lancaster May 27 to face off against the remaining contenders following their dual first-place wins in February – beating out seven other Intermediate Unit-affiliated schools in the Washington, Greene and Fayette region with their communications device, “The SticKey,” and winning the “on-the-spot” challenge.
“They had 30 minutes (for the on-the-spot challenge) to design and construct a paper airplane that would hold an egg and have it remain intact after launching it onto a target,” said curriculum director and adviser Trish Craig.
“The other teams were apparently inspired by existing model aircraft, whereas we went for a design that protected the egg the most in the back end of the plane,” said Shelbie Curtis, 16.
As for their communications device, the idea for the SticKey, which helps those with motor disabilities type using a joystick and screen, came as the team’s primary coder thought about his grandfather.
“He had recently fallen and needed help typing and using digital devices,” said Connor Ehrgood, 16, “I wanted to help him.”
Two of the members, Emily Richard and Cameron Schaub, both 16, first heard of the competition through Craig and district gifted coordinator Jackie Newman.
“Emily and I saw the challenge of the governor’s contest as a way to help people. We whittled away at so many ideas because they already had been done.
But Connor’s idea, once he came on, it really clicked with us,” said Schaub, explaining the two set out to recruit a “dream team” of coders and unconventional thinkers. Joining the group was 15-year-old Alec Rasel.
“My focus was to pitch it as a state-changing product; how it would help communities. It shifted as different elements changed with the product, but that’s how we got here,” said Rasel.
Like good entrepreneurs, they didn’t head into the competition without first testing their device. There were a couple of field trips.
“We’ve tried to make it as universally accessible as possible in terms of age range and disability. We first tested it with elementary school children to gauge hand size and peripheral ergonomics. … The feedback we got from BirdBrain Technologies was important on how we got it to stabilize on a flat surface, using certain materials over others,” Richard said.
“One trip was to the Cameron Wellness Center, and a physical therapist there gave us feedback about problems in previous design phases. She gave us ideas on how to incorporate more uses into it – like not only using it as a communication device, but as a way of physical therapy in itself,” said Ehrgood.
In interviews, Ehrgood was cryptic about design features and what platforms the joystick can run on because the team is guarding its innovation through the patent process, regardless of the outcome in May. But Ehrgood conceded that per the contest rules, “all the components could be found on Amazon.”
“As far as inputs are concerned, it’s operating through USB ports right now,” Ehrgood said, “and all the software we’ve coded is open-source and available to anyone.”
The idea for SticKey when there are other “augmented communication” devices around, Ehrgood said, was that this product would be practically feasible for most users with various disabilities.
“Often when you have a disability of motor skills, speech is affected, so eye-tracking and speech software – and those require even more specialized hardware – that isn’t as practical (as a joystick functioning as a keyboard),” he said.
“We’re trying to eliminate the idea of adequateness in terms of communication,” Curtis said, “(and promote) that you can communicate with doctors, teachers and family and friends with this peripheral.”
The team was given a stipend of $500 to produce its original prototype, which will be further refined using a prize of $750.
At stake in May are $2,000, $1,000 and $500 scholarships – and bragging rights to have won the second annual Pa. Governor’s STEM Competition.