STEM-In-Action Fall Follow Up: StopFire Brigade

Welcome to our final STEM-In-Action Fall Follow Up! The U.S. Army Educational Outreach Program (AEOP) awards STEM-In-Action Grants of up to $5,000 to eCYBERMISSION National Finalist or Regional Winning teams that wish to further develop and implement their projects in their communities. To wrap up the series, we're checking in with team StopFire Brigade!

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Hello there! We are team StopFire Brigade from Andover, Massachusetts. Our team is made up of Matthew Wang and Sean Conner and our Team Advisor, Mrs. McDonald. We are currently 8th graders at West Middle School. We got involved in eCYBERMISSION by joining our school’s eCYBERMISSION club. Our project focused on the rising number of wildfires in Massachusetts and our goal was to create a device that would alert homeowners when a wildfire is nearing their home.

Wildfires are a big problem in the United States, especially in western states such as California and Oregon. However, what many people don’t know is that Massachusetts also has wildfires, and the number of wildfires is on the rise. In 2020, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts had 796 wildfires which threatened 300 homes in Massachusetts. After researching more about this, we decided to create an early detection warning system that would alert homeowners when a wildfire is nearing their home. We entered our project into the eCYBERMISSION competition, and our project was a National Finalist. If you would like to see our presentation from the National Judging & Educational Event (NJ&EE), please click this link: StopFire Brigade National Showcase Presentation.

With the STEM-In-Action grant, we are going to improve our device. The first thing we are going to do is create a better housing structure for our device (more on that later). We are planning on making it solar powered and creating a custom circuit board. This will help our device be more accurate and sustainable. We also are planning on distributing our device to interested homeowners that live in our area. With these improvements and plans for our device, we strongly believe that we will be able to have a big impact on our community.

We have begun working to improve our prototype. With the money from the STEM In-Action grant, we have ordered a large 3D printer (as well as some filament) so we can have a better case for our prototype with more precise measurements. When the 3D printer arrives, we will work on creating a better case for our device. That is the first thing we are going to do to improve our prototype. With the help of the STEM-In-Action grant, we strongly believe that our improved prototype can stop many fires and save even more lives.

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Thank you so much for tuning in to our STEM-In-Action Fall Follow Ups! Check back in this Spring as we meet up with our STEM-In-Action Grant teams again. Until then, don't forget to register for eCYBERMISSION at www.ecybermission.com/register. Who knows? Maybe we'll see your team here next year!

Faith Benner
Senior Communications and Marketing Specialist