Box To The Future robotics team at Glen Ames school enters FedRx into FIRST Lego League competition
Robotics students at Glen Ames Senior Public School are continuing the tradition established at the school of competing in the FIRST Lego League (FLL) championships.
This year’s team will be entering its FedRx creation in this year’s Ontario competition which will take place virtually on Saturday, Dec. 11.
The FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Lego League is part of an international alliance of educators challenging young students to find solutions to real-world issues using Lego Mindstorms technology. This kind of Lego sees students put their coding skills to the test while using Lego hardware and software.
The real-world challenge that the Glen Ames team members have taken on is how to use technology and robotics to help people, especially seniors and those with mobility issues, make sure their prescription medicines can be safely and legally delivered to them at their homes.
The Glen Ames team, which has given itself the name Box To The Future, describes the FedRx solution this way:
“Many people, particularly seniors, people with tight schedules, and people with mobility issues, find it difficult to pick up their prescriptions. Prescriptions can now be delivered to your home, however, with current regulations a signature is always required. This is not always possible while targeting a busy or older audience. As a result, we developed an accessible solution. We built an electronic safety lock box that digitally signs and accepts your medication in a COVID safe, hands-free way.”
Basically, FedRx is a secure box at your door or in your building lobby that can be used for delivery people to drop off prescription medicines for specific people safely.
There is a place on the box that reads the barcode of the prescription being delivered. If it matches what it is supposed to be receiving, the box opens and the medicine is placed inside. The box also sends a digital signature to the company that has delivered it. The owner of the box can then open it by using fingerprint technology to retrieve their delivery.
The box uses a combination of “advanced mechanics and advanced programming” to offer this secure way for prescription medicines to be delivered.
Glen Ames robotics teams have a long legacy of competing in the FLL, and a number of those teams have achieved provincial, national and international success.
Team Box To The Future is hoping to carry on that legacy, though this year and the past one have challenging for robotics students at the school given the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
