TransformersRobotics

Transformers Win 2nd Place Champion's Award

The Transformers Robotics Team won the second place Champion’s Award at the Kell Regional Qualifier Tournament on November 13^th.  The competition took place at Kell High School with 15 other teams.  The day was broken into four major areas and the Champion’s Award is combination of all four categories:

(1) The Body Forward robot game – we completed many missions and our best run was worth 155 points, which was third place in the rankings.

(2) Research Presentation – we had five minutes to show the judges our research project and our solution.  Then they asked a ton of questions.

(3) Robot Design Presentation – we had five minutes to show the judges the mechanical, programming and strategic principles of the robot and our missions.  The judges then asked us questions.

(4) Team Work and FIRST Lego League Core Values – we were judged throughout the day for our teamwork and behaving with Gracious Professionalism.

 

Kids with Trophy

 

The day was fun and exciting, but we were very tired at the end.  Seven other teams are advancing with us to a Super Regional Tournament on January 8^th.

 

Awaiting Results

 

Teams going on from there will compete in the Georgia state tournament on January 29^th at Georgia Tech!

 

 

 

Research Project Highlights

Across the globe about 160 million people are blind or have low vision.  The various reasons are seen in the graph below.  Most causes are preventable.

Global Blindness and Low Vision Causes

 

In the USA the top causes of blindness and low vision are seen below in the graph.  With early detection by an eye doctor, most blindness and low vision issues can be prevented or treated.

 

USA Blindness and Low Vision Causes

 

But most people do not get diagnosed until it is too late!  We learned that 66% of people have not been to the eye doctor in the last 12 months (46% of people over 65 years old).

 

Percent people that have not seen the eye doctor

 

The problem is that most people do not get to the eye doctor, so they do not get early treatment and go blind or have low vision.

 

Our solution puts diagnostic equipment where people go all of the time like the grocery, drug store or the mall (like those old blood pressure machines).  We invented the iScan! It is a special camera that takes a digital photo of your eye, and then some software analyzes the image for precursors to problems like Macular Degeneration or Retinopathy.  Since people can get scans over a longer period of time, it can also find cataracts, glaucoma and other eye problems.  The iScan! will print out your image and tell you to get to the eye doctor immediately if there is a problem; it will even e-mail or fax the doctor for you.

 

iScan! System