The Samsung Solve for Tomorrow Contest is highlighting the inspiring ways young students are changing lives. 

This year, three middle school girls in North Carolina were finalists in their state because of a bright idea to help first responders. The girls took a device originally designed to notify first responders to potential drownings and programmed it to make text messages. If the device detects low oxygen levels, it sends a text alert to 911. 

“We wanted our device to have an SMS card and a GPS location to prevent drownings, but this device can also help people involved in any type of hypoxic episode if you have an allergic reaction, asthma or anything that can make you stop breathing,” one of the girls told The Wake Weekly. 

For the same competition, a class in West Virginia is creating an app that can help rescue workers find disabled students trapped in school during emergencies. The current protocol has disabled students staying in place while they wait for someone to get them. This app will show the location of mobility-impaired students at all times.

In Dublin, Ohio, a group of middle school students invented a system that helps drivers avoid car accidents by alerting them when animals are scurrying onto roads. The students, who dub themselves the “Binary Bros,” had to decide which technology would be best to detect the critters: LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) technology or artificial neural networks. LIDAR is a remote sensing technology that uses light, while an artificial neural network is a type of technology that imitates your brain. 

The students picked neural networks and got to work. The hardest part, according to one 13-year-old student, was figuring out how to make the sensors all work together.

The team’s hard work paid off. They got to present their design to city officials and members of Honda R&D Americas Inc., who were all very impressed. What’s more, they won a chance to compete in the FIRST Lego League Ohio Championship at Wright State University.

Teach your students engineering!

Help inspire your students to learn about the life-changing possibilities in engineering by teaching a TryEngineering lesson plan, like Binary Basics. This lesson is intended to provide very young students with a basic understanding of how the system of binary numbers works. 

Learn more today.