The “Savage Cabbages” team from Los Gatos is headed to this weekend’s First LEGO League qualification tournament, where it will participate in the league’s 2017 Hydro Dynamics Challenge. The eight-member team—six students from Daves Avenue Elementary and two Fisher Middle School students—have studied actions people can take to stop wasting cold water while waiting for hot water.
Team members researched the water waste problem, developed water-saving solutions and built a robot that will participate in First LEGO League “Robot Games” being held at various locations in Northern California this month.
The kids will also present their research findings at the tournament, so they upped their game on Nov. 1, when they presented their project to Los Gatos Mayor Marico Sayoc at Town Hall.
“The goal is to save water, find different ways of using water, having fun and learning new things,” team member Gracin Ting said. “Our team calculated that each person in Los Gatos wastes 182 gallons of water a year waiting for water to get hot.”
The calculation assumes each resident wastes a half-gallon of cold water daily waiting for their shower to get hot. At seven showers a week, the kids say the town’s estimated 35,000 residents are wasting well over 6 million gallons annually.
To address that problem, the boys developed two systems for recirculating water at home. One includes a pump that recirculates water when you manually flip a switch that can be added to existing homes.
The other system uses “smart” pipes that can be built into new homes.
“Basically, I used elbow and tee pipes, a medium motor and gear wheels to represent a diverter and re-circulation pump,” team member Nate Spyker said. “The diverter is a pipe with three different exits, but the gear wheels can block one of the exits, so that it only goes one way. If it’s cold water it can go to farming or washing a dog in a bucket.”
The team suggested that Los Gatos create a resolution encouraging people to save water by installing recirculating pumps or smart pipes. But they didn’t dismiss the old bucket-in-the-shower trick to collect water, either.
“I like how you’re thinking ahead,” Mayor Sayoc told the team. “You can reach out to your own schools, and we can work together to promote water conservation. My background is in water resources, so I understand how important this subject is. It’s not just California; it’s all across the southern United States.”
The “Savage Cabbages,” who have three adult coaches, also demonstrated their LEGO robot that will go on missions during this weekend’s competition.
“The boys have programmed the robot to drive and turn,” coach Albert Ting said. “It senses lines and uses the motor to pickup and drop things. So, we’ll pick three missions to accomplish this weekend.”
The missions might be anything from fixing a pipe to making the clouds rain, coach Mike Bever said.
The First LEGO League says its goal is to to engage children in a playful learning environment, while helping them discover science and technology.
From what Gracin says, the team has achieved that goal.
“I like the programming part,” he said. “I’m not really into Legos; I’m interested in the programming. It’s mostly math with a little science, if you include water.”
The “Savage Cabbages” are Ronan Kinczel, Nolan Harr, Cameron Brown, Brody Tanner, Kyle Brown, Logan Leu, Gracin Ting and Nate Spyker, and coaches Andrew Spyker, Albert Ting and Mike Bever.
