Sharon Robotics Team Wins Awards at World Championship
SHARON, Pa. – A Sharon Tiger Techs robotics team and its coach received awards at the First World Championship.
Team Orange, which includes students from fourth to eighth grades in the Sharon City School District, competed in the First LEGO League Division against 160 other teams from around the world. The event took place April 17-21 in Houston, Texas.
The team received the Innovation Project Finalist Award, which recognizes the use of diverse resources for a team’s innovation project to help it gain a comprehensive understanding of its problem; has a creative, well-researched solution; and effectively communicates findings to judges and the community.
The award recognized the Sharon team for its Adapt-A-Reel project, an adaptive fishing device the team created for people with upper limb amputations and/or limited fine motor skills. The team improved its prototype over the past eight months and met with several experts, including a physical and recreational therapist, the PA Fish and Boat Commission and staff members at Whole Life Services in Hermitage, Pa. The team then tested the product several times with clients at Whole Life Services and secured a provisional patent for the device with the help of Robert Sovesky of K and L Gates in Pittsburgh.
In addition to the innovation project, the team competed with its robot in a robot table game and in an alliance robot competition. The team designed, built and programmed a LEGO EV3 Robot to complete tasks autonomously on a themed playing field.
The team is under the leadership of Dave Tomko and Kelly Roys. At the event, Tomko received the Coach of the Year Award, which is given to coaches and mentors who inspire their teams to do their best, both as individuals and together.
Pictured at top: Members of Sharon Tiger Techs Team Orange are, front row from left, Sophie Nespor, Luca Paoletta and Camille Klaric; and coach Dave Tomko, Jasper Stanisky, Henry Nowinski, Tony Gaggini, Matthew Schimp, Ian Connelly, Olivia Totin and coach Kelly Roys.
Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
