STEM-In-Action Fall Follow-Up: Team Heely Wheelys

It's Friday and that means its time again for a STEM-In-Action Fall Follow-Up. This week, we head to New England to see what Team Heely Wheelys has been up to since our National Judging and Educational Event (NJ&EE). If you’re new to the STEM-In-Action grant or eCYBERMISSION in general, each year the U.S. Army Educational Outreach Program (AEOP) STEM-In-Action Grant awards eCYBERMISSION teams up to $5,000 to develop their projects into mature and scalable solutions in their community. eCYBERMISSION itself is a STEM competition for students in 6^th-9^th grade that’s completely online and gives students the chance to win thousands in grant money. Team Heely Wheelys has been working hard since attending NJ&EE in June and we cannot wait to see what they’ve been up to.

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We are Team Heely-Wheelys: Natalia, Eva, and Marianna. Our team is from Andover, Massachusetts. Last year we became involved in eCYBERMISSION at our middle school. As 7th grade students on Team Quest, we participated in eCYBERMISSION as part of the required science curriculum.  However, our team viewed this whole experience as a tremendous learning opportunity. We were eager to get to work and to embrace the challenges that awaited us.  It was amazing to be able to identify a solution to help members of our local community.

One billion people worldwide experience some sort of disability. That is 15% of the world's population. Of these 1 billion people, 11.6 million use some sort of walking device, whether it be a walker, wheelchair, cane, or crutches to get around. Accessibility for all residents is vital in a community. So we asked ourselves, “How accessible is our local community for handicapped residents?”

This project focused on the handicap accessibility of town buildings and store fronts in our local community of Andover, MA. It began with surveying the downtown area of Andover and selecting a central section of Main Street to focus on. This area included a pharmacy, town hall, and other local businesses that were frequented by Andover residents. The data collected showed that out of the 41 locations that were mapped, 31 of them, or 75% were accessible from the front entrance. However, only 14.6% had a handicapped button to automatically open the door. Though they are not mandated by law, the addition of automated doors would not only increase the accessibility for handicapped residents, but would increase local business profits as well. Throughout this project, we will focus on improving the lives of handicapped residents in our community by increasing accessibility to local buildings and store fronts.

Our proposed solution is to improve the lives of handicapped individuals in our local community by increasing accessibility to buildings and storefronts in Andover.  Our original solution included BOTH a Google Map-like app and a device to automated door opening on buildings.

Initially, the STEM-in-Action Grant was intended to help us further develop the EasyGo App. However, after much discussion we decided to revamp our focus to an app centric development that will enhance the lives of handicapped citizens in our community and their caregivers. With this funding, the app should be ready to submit to the Apple store and Google Play next year. App users will be able to identify locations around town that are handicapped accessible, improving not only their sense of independence but their quality of life as well.

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Enhancing the lives of anyone in your community is a main goal for eCM students, but Team Heely Wheelys has taken it to another level by helping a group within their community that has an additional set of difficulties to navigate. By helping the handicapped people in their community, they are creating a baseline for the greater good including increased business for local citizens as well as promoting mental health and wellness within the handicapped community by encouraging independence.

We are so proud of this team’s hard work and cannot wait to catch up with them again in the spring!

-Mission Control