Great Results from the GCS Qualifier

Sarah B. - OwlBot Researcher - 8th Grade

Sorry about the gap between recent posts; both teams were preparing for the qualifier last weekend. I am happy to announce that both the OwlBots and the Green Machine will be advancing to the state competition. In order to be eligable to advance, teams had to rank in the top 12 out of 24 teams in the robot game and be one of the top 6 overall across all categories. While our robot game results were not as good as we had been averaging in practice, our research projects and core value scores were excellent.

As well as advancing, the OwlBots won the Judges' Award for excellance in all categories, and Mr. O won the Adult Mentor Award. Both teams are looking forward to the competition at UMBC on January 19. We'd like to thank all of our mentors for listening to our project, and helping us improve it. 

The Face Scan App

Noah Montemarano - Owlbots Researcher - 8th grade

Instead of following our previous idea to create an automatic medication dispenser, the Woods Academy Owlbots have pursued a new, much more exciting idea - a facial recognition app. Our team wanted to invent something that would benefit early to mid-stage Alzheimer's patients by helping them to recognize and identify family and friends. By incorporating existing facial recognition software, we are developing an app for iPhone and iPad that, when has recognized a certain face, will say or play anything to help trigger a memory of that person. Whether it's a video, a recording, a song, or simply a name, this app could help countless numbers of patients have a comfortable sense of familiarity when approached.

To prepare for the presentation of this idea, the robotics team is using the judging rubric to create an outline for the new script. In addition, the scrimmage we attended at Greenbelt School helped us focus in on our areas of strength and areas of growth.  The advice from the scrimmage judges, as well as the discussion we had with Mrs. Tina Sandri and Mrs. Abby Smith, helped us get a clearer notion of the problem, and in turn our solution. Even though there are many unknowns about the presentation itself, the entire team is excited for the outcome (and hopefully success) of our final project.