Hicksville High School Robotics team places first in national competition – The Mid Island Times

They are known as the J Birds, and they are flying high after winning first place in a prestigious national robotics competition. Ten members of the Hicksville High School Robotics team, earned top billing in the Business Model portion of the Altice USAs Future Innovator awards, and first runner up in the Community Impact portion. As a result of their placing, the team received a $2,500 grant from Altice USA Inc that will be used in next years competition fees.

Hicksville juniors, Jesse Kohli, Ekam Singh and Jason Jiang, were the main creators of an idea to invent a device similar to a VR (virtual reality)headset to monitor the physical activity levels of senior citizens.

Instead of an in-person competition this year, our team was presented with an innovation challenge that would benefit the community, said Kohli. We came up with this idea to create a VR communication platform, which we named Aureum, that would allow teenagers and senior citizens to stay fit.

He said the idea was that teenagers who were looking to get fit, would engage in activities such as hiking, running and biking. While they were doing this, they would be fitted with 360 high-res cameras, so senior citizens could participate with them in the activity. The seniors could follow along with teens during their exercise routines virtually, by wearing a specialized VR headset.

Its similar to FaceTime or Google Zoom, but with this specialized VR headset, said Kohli. Seniors who are still able to move could sit on an elliptical machine for example and feel like they were partaking with the teen in the activity and people who are immobile would still be able to talk with them through the audio device.

Kohli said that throughout the pandemic, team members spent time at senior centers on Long Island, to help the residents stave off feelings of isolation and loneliness.

Before this competition began, from February to April, we had sent out surveys to senior centers to find out ideas theyd be interested in and they were really intrigued with the VR headset. That kind of prompted us to work on this idea.

As part of the competition, they showed concepts of their model to the panel of judges, and created videos of how the idea would work. They also created a mock-up website online, called Aureum, as a way for the teenagers and seniors to connect with one another.

Through this mock-up website, teens who were looking to get fit would choose an activity and theyd be able link up with a senior through a list of senior centers who had listed their preferences, said Kohli.

Catherine Temps, coach of the J Birds Robotics team, said she was very proud of her teams accomplishments in a tumultuous year.

For us it was really about just helping others, that was our number one priority since we first started, said Temps.

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Hicksville High School Robotics team places first in national competition - The Mid Island Times