jews d
in
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continued from page 12
“We are always looking for ways to engage our
students in competitions or projects that push
them to collaborate, adapt new technologies
and stretch their ‘perceived’ limits.”
— ERIN GROVES
not the least of which is getting its car to
operate.
As Nicholas Mantas, the student’s faculty
adviser and FJA’s science department chair,
describes it, Team FJA has been forced to
seek answers where none were easily within
reach. He, along with fellow science teacher
Eric Rapp, have been shepherding the stu-
dents through the process of creating and
refining their projects.
“My areas of expertise are chemistry and
What Is Th e
Technion?
Established in 1912 during the
Ottoman Empire, the Israel Institute
of Technology, commonly known as
the Technion, is a public research
university in Haifa, Israel, and is the
country’s oldest university.
Boasting four current Nobel
Laureates in chemistry on its faculty,
the Technion is often attributed as a
driving force behind Israel’s growth
in high-tech industry creation and
innovation.
Do you enjoy the convenience of
saving your documents on a flash
drive? If so, you can thank inventors
from Technion for that space saver.
The list of inventions and accom-
plishments is fairly substantive, but
for the sake of brevity we’ve chosen
five worthy of some ink.
Azilect: A monoamine oxidase-B
(MAO-B) inhibitor developed in part-
nership with Teva Pharmaceuticals,
Azilect (rasagiline) is a drug ther-
apy used for treating early‐stage
Parkinson’s disease.
Iron Dome: The dual-mission,
counter-rocket, -artillery and –mortar
air defense system, Iron Dome has
been called “a game changer” for
its ability to prevent air attacks by
Israel’s enemies.
Argo ReWalk: The ReWalk is a
walking assistance robotic suit that
allows paraplegics, to stand, walk,
climb stairs and drive. Time maga-
zine ranked the ReWalk among the
world’s Top 25 Inventions for 2013.
Life-saving Tissue: Using human
embryonic stem cells, two Technion
professors were first to create new
heart muscle in the lab with its own
blood supply that could replace
cardiac tissue damaged by heart
disease.
ExAblate System: A magnetic
resonance imaging-guided focused
ultrasound technology used to treat
uterine fibroids in women that first
came to market in 2004 for use
in specific instances and gained
approved in 2015 for all fibroids.
— Ari Samuel
14
March 22 • 2018
jn
Juniors Sarah Phillips and Jonah Weinbaum, Team FJA’s designated coders, have spent countless hours
examining lines of code in an effort to make their robot drivable for the RoboTraffic Competition.
resenting the United States this year, will
compete in three of the competition’s seven
categories: the Car Race; presenting a 3D
Computer Aided Design (CAD) model of
a car’s steering system and; the Traffic
Improvement Proposal.
BIG BENEFITS
Erin Groves, the school’s director of General
Studies, acknowledged the goals set forth
for students competing in RoboTraffic
have been “daunting” for Team FJA, but she
expects the results to pay dividends — for
both participants and Frankel — moving
forward.
“We are always looking for ways to
engage our students in competitions or
projects that push them to collaborate,
adapt new technologies and stretch their
‘perceived’ limits,” Groves explained. “There
will be carryover from this experience,
in both confidence and a base of knowl-
edge, for FJA to participate in contests like
RoboTraffic in the future.”
The word “daunting” seems appropri-
ate given this is FJA’s first time competing
at a high-tech rodeo. Last academic year,
the school began a huge push to weave
elements of STEM curricula across all
subjects, both Jewish and general studies,
leveraging the use of its new technology
makerspace, Genesis Lab.
“This is a real trailblazer moment for us,”
Groves added. “We’ve never participated in
something like this as a school, and adding
coding along with other science, tech, engi-
neering and math-centric opportunities
gives our kids a more dynamic education.”
Necessity being the mother of invention,
Team FJA has been midwifing its robot with
little more than grit and determination to
achieve some arguably Herculean goals —
mathematics, and I have no coding expe-
rience myself, so I’m learning alongside
the kids on this one; nor do they have the
luxury of a mentor in the building to go to
for answers,” Mantas explained. “They’ve
essentially been figuring this out on their
own, which has been inspiring to see.”
By way of example, its newest and young-
est member, Cooper, just 15, was tasked
with developing a mechanical steering
system, and Mantas said it’s been nothing
short of “amazing” how she’s risen to the
challenge.
“Elisha knew nothing about the CAD
software and yet was given the task, and on
her own figured out how to work the soft-
ware,” he said.
“Trying to learn robotics from scratch
has been the ultimate challenge for me,” she
explained. “I have definitely poured count-
less hours into this and I can’t wait to see
the finished product.”
Weinbaum and Sarah Phillips are the
team’s two coders and have spent weeks
writing code in the “C” programming
language, which is to coders as Latin is to
linguists.
“It has been difficult to communicate
ideas and work on the code when only one
person could do it at a time,” Phillips said.
“I’ve learned better ways of working with
other people.”
MULTIPLE CHALLENGES
Weinbaum, the team’s sole member fore-
going that free Tuesday off hoping to gain
some traction making the robotic car
mobile, said the impetus for joining the
group stemmed from a hobby — and it
hasn’t been easy.
“Let me start by saying there have been
loads of challenges,” he said. “The main
challenges are the professional grade
systems in the car that use PIC microcon-
trollers [because] they were designed many
years ago and certainly not with the inten-
tion of high schoolers using them.”
For us 99 percent who have likely
never heard of a PIC microcontroller —
Programmable Interface Controller — they
are programmable electronic circuits
devised to carry out a range of tasks.
According to the electronics blog Kanda.
com, examples abound: PIC microcon-
trollers can be programmed as timers or
used to control production lines, and are
found in most electronic devices, from
alarms to computer control systems.
“This has definitely been humbling,”
Weinbaum said. “When we first started, I
wanted to make the car artificially intel-
ligent, since neural networks and machine
learning are my programming specialties,
but I soon learned that getting it to move
would be difficult.”
The last challenge, which Gawel, 16, and
State, 17, have each headed up, involves
drafting a proposal for improving traffic
safety. Their big idea, should it be deemed
viable and ever brought to market, could
conceivably be a lifesaver for anyone suffer-
ing from white-line fever, otherwise known
as highway hypnosis.
“It was hard to brainstorm an idea that
was workable,” State explained. “Most had
problems, but it’s been very satisfying to
know this one is so clever … once the logis-
tics are figured out, getting places will be
easier with fewer car-related deaths.”
In layman’s terms, the proposal suggests
using existing facial recognition technology
currently found on iPhone and Android
devices that measures the surface area of
the eyes to determine whether a user’s eye-
lids are drooping, indicating fatigue.
“Having little experience in the world
of electronics and coding, I thought
RoboTraffic would be a great way to chal-
lenge myself with something new,” Gawel
said. “Josh and I ran into problems devel-
oping a new idea since many failed with
further research, but I’ve been excited to
push myself in a way that I hadn’t been
challenged before.”
At the end of the day — and the compe-
tition is only a one-day event — whether
they place first or last, Team FJA considers
it a win just competing at this level with no
prior experience.
The students, accompanied by Mantas,
will have arrived in Tel Aviv on Monday,
March 19, and spent the following day
preparing for competition. Mid-week is set
aside for touring and, following the compe-
tition, the six will head south on Friday to
spend Shabbat in Jerusalem. The team will
be on the red-eye home early next Sunday.
“It’s thrilling having our students play in
Israel’s ‘start-up nation’ sandbox,” said FJA’s
Head of School Rabbi Azaryah Cohen. “This
project, with the help of dedicated instruc-
tors, has pushed our students to think cre-
atively, applying their skills to improve the
world around us.” •
Ari Samuel is a Detroit-based freelance writer.