Barrington Middle School Robotics Team Overflow Designs Specialized App for Fire Fighters Written by Sam Wohlever

Barrington Middle School Robotics Team Overflow

Designs Specialized App for Fire Fighters

Written by Sam Wohlever

BARRINGTON — A proposal for a web app that would allow fire fighters to locate fire hydrants, even when they are covered with snow, was designed by members of Barrington Middle School’s FIRST LEGO League (FLL) Team Overflow. The team consists of seven students: Riddhi Adhiya, Andrew Cooke, Theenash Kumar, Eliot Laidlaw, Conor Mc Gartoll, Kyle Villella and Sam Wohlever.

In 2013-14 there are over 200,000 students from over 70 countries that will be competing in First LEGO League Tournaments. Team Overflow competed at the Robotics Qualifying Tournament on November 23rd at Bay View Academy and won the prestigious First Place Champion’s Award. They are preparing to compete at the upcoming State Championship at Roger Williams University on Saturday, January 11th.

At the FLL competition, teams are judged in three categories: Robot, Project and Core Values. The team must create a LEGO robot which can complete specified tasks, demonstrate that they can work cooperatively during the core values challenge, and develop and effectively present an innovative solution to a given research topic. This year’s research project topic centers on natural disasters.

Team Overflow chose to focus on snow storms. During discussions with Barrington firefighter, Bob Flauss, the team learned how difficult it is to find fire hydrants when they are buried under snow. The Barrington Fire Department currently uses paper maps to locate the town’s 400 hydrants. Snow storms coupled with plows mounting snow over hydrants makes finding and digging them out one of the most tedious jobs for the firefighters. Lack of access to the hydrants during an emergency can severely impede their rescue and fire suppression mission. In an effort to assist the Fire Department, Team Overflow decided to locate all of the hydrants in Barrington on a Google Map which can be accessed by local firefighters and the DPW in the form of an app.

In addition to using the app, “Firefighter’s Friend,” to accurately locate hydrants using GPS coordinates, the team also added in a feature that would allow users to update, in real time, road blockages. If a road is impassable due to fallen wires, trees or snow drifts, the DPW or firefighters can add that to the map. When the blockage is cleared the app can be modified accordingly. This feature will be helpful in routing fire trucks to emergencies.

It is the hope of Team Overflow that once the app is functional for Barrington, other interested towns may choose to utilize it as well.