Upper School STEM Students Bring Home National Title

Earlier this year, Kaylen Rivers ‘21 and Reece Whatmore ‘21 created an interactive, tactile, assistive technology storybook as their entry in ODA’s first Technology Student Association (TSA) State Competition. The book was designed for students with physical and intellectual impairment, and in adherence with the competition guidelines, the team created every component of their book themselves. After tough rounds of judging at the State Competition, their second-place finish in the category advanced them to the National Competition in Washington, D.C. this June. Kaylen and Reece had an impressive showing at the TSA National Competition, however fierce competition from teams across the country kept the duo from a top 12 finish.

Not to be outdone, the students attended an exciting seminar presented by Stokes Educational Services (SES) while at the competition. During the presentation, the speaker, Robert Stokes, demonstrated the abilities of an advanced humanoid robot. He gave a brief introduction on how its programming worked, and outlined the parameters of the SES Humanoid Robotic National Championship Competition that would be held the following day.

Kaylen and Reece immediately jumped at the challenge and registered for the high-level competition. Entrants were tasked to create an original program for the robot – tell a story, perform a dance, or present a lesson. Although teams had only 24 hours to complete the work, the ODA students decided on an intricate program inspired by their AP US History course. Working off a timeline of history from the 1980s to the 2000s, they programmed the robot to interact with its audience incorporating voice recognition, touch recognition, arm and head movements, and text-to-voice speech.
 
The following day, the team stepped in front of the elite judging panel. Their robot spoke with the panel, asked for input regarding a particular year, shared a fact about that year, and then played an iconic song from that year while performing the accompanying dance. After three decades of facts, songs, and dances, the robot quizzed the panel as its final task.

“After many changes in ideas, failed attempts, and trial and error, the moment when we saw our programming come to life through the robot was amazing,” said Kaylen. “...we used [our experience from the children’s storybook competition] to gauge how we should approach the SES robotics competition. We had to come up with some out-of-the-box ideas that no one would attempt to do. I think that’s why we won.”

At the conclusion of the intense competition, Kaylen and Reece were awarded the National Championship. The two students say that their experience at the Washington, D.C. event was inspirational and rewarding. They hope to have more opportunities to work with SES humanoid robots and look forward to participating in future TSA competitions.