BY NICHOLAS BROWN
Each year, Pembroke Academy’s FIRST team designs and builds a robot for a series of competitions.
The school’s FIRST coordinator, science teacher David Kelley, asks, “What do you do with all the parts and the controllers and such when the competition’s done?”
The answer: build a robot that can potentially save lives.
For the past few years, Kelley and his students have been working to design an ice rescue system, which they call the “ice bot,” for the Pembroke Fire Department.
The ice bot is a remote-controlled robot designed to travel on thin ice and carry a flotation device to people who’ve fallen into freezing waters. The 30- to 40-pound robot has its components encased in sealed plastic ware, and leaves a rope trail.
Kelley, PA students and firefighters took the ice bot out for its first run on a cold night in March.
“It performed very well on the ice,” said Kelley. “We have really no idea how viable the system is going to be.”
Kelley said he hopes firefighters can use the ice bot to initially approach stranded people as firefighters gear up to make their own approach.
He said firefighters responded positively to the bot’s first trial run, but he said it’s still uncertain whether the ice bot will become a fixture for the department.
“Until we actually give it to the firefighters and see how it works, that’s something we can’t really predict,” he said. “We kind of want them to test it and see what its weaknesses are.”
Several classes of Kelley’s students and FIRST team members have chipped in with the ice bot project over the years.
“The (FIRST) competition is all about real-life stuff,” he said. “This is just a further application of that.”
PA junior Molly Lindh and sophomore Amanda Rich, for example, were charged with a trip to the store to pick out the best plastic container to form the bot’s outer shell.
“We were in Wal-Mart for like 40 minutes to pick out the (plastic) ware,” said Rich.
Added Lindh, “It’s to keep all the wiring and all the mechanical stuff dry if it falls into the water.”
And a wet ice bot wouldn’t be the end of the world, said Kelley.
“If it can help save people, it’s worth it,” he said.
Kelley and fire officials have discussed more potential features of the robot including voice activation, video or gas sensors, but such improvements may be some time out.
“It’s still in the testing phase,” he said.
Pembroke firefighter Aaron Smart described the bot’s trial run as a great research and development project.
“Firefighters always like to play with toys,” he said. “It was a very positive learning experience for both the FIRST team and the fire department.”
Smart also said it was good working with FIRST team members on such a positive project, since people often see firefighters only in bad situations.
“We had an awful good time working with the students,” he said.