FIRST Lego League (FLL) robotics Team No. 894 of Maple Valley, Washington, calls itself “BeamOn”! This is the embodiment of STEM curriculum success! They have a passion for robots and all things tech and a heart for all things ‘green’. These nine students are members of their district’s “Green Team” program; an award winning ecology and conservation program the Tahoma School District has integrated into their schools. This program teaches stewardship through hands on education and earth friendly processes used district-wide. They are re-inventing the food cycle at the school. They are planning to work with Impact Bioenergy by using an anaerobic digester system partially funded by a Kickstarter campaign.
This year, BeamOn is preparing to tackle the robotics competition challenge: “Trash Trek” by bringing their knowledge from Green Team to the competition. The challenge is to research and innovate better ways of handling our trash. With the help of Impact Bioenergy and the use of the HORSE, this team is researching better ways to dispose of food waste, thinking of applications for the technology, and thinking about how they can influence others to embrace the technology.
The BeamOn team is currently working on a peer-to-peer curriculum to teach other kids about the innovative way the HORSE converts organic waste into energy and fertilizer, including a comic book! The FLL community consists of more than 233,000 children from over 80 countries and these teams will all explore the fascinating world of trash and innovate towards handling it better.
BeamOn will showcase to this vast group how uneaten food can be converted in real time, and how food waste can be diverted from disposal. Their project will work to normalize the idea that food waste equates to energy, fertilizer, food and jobs. Their project has a good chance of winning and a 100% chance of teaching and inspiring other students on how community scale bioenergy can be used at every school to teach science and sustainability.