The Future Bolles Innovators (FBI) fifth grade robotics team recently presented a wheelchair beach access plan to the St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners.
As part of the students’ FIRST LEGO League competitive curriculum this season, students were tasked with proposing an innovative solution for a community challenge. Students tackled the idea of wheelchair access to St. Johns County beaches and shared their findings during the commissioners’ Feb. 18 session.
“This group of 10 fifth graders, along with their sister team of fourth graders, embraced a challenge that exists as part of a category in their FIRST LEGO League,” said Bolles Lower School Ponte Vedra Beach campus science teacher and robotics coach Carolyn Houston during her introduction to the commissioners.
FIRST LEGO League is an international robotics competition built around theme-based challenges that engage children ages 9 to16 in research, problem-solving, coding and engineering. This winter, robotics teams around the world, including several from The Bolles School, have been practicing for local and regional qualifying meets.
“Their goal was to identify a problem and the teams invited wheelchair users to help determine the biggest accessibility issues in our area,” Houston said. “The problem was quickly identified – access to our Beaches for the disabled needed help.”
During their robotics competition season, fourth graders worked to create a better beach wheelchair. The FBI fifth grade team, however, expanded its focus to the distribution of existing beach wheelchairs. The county owns only a few beach wheelchairs, and all must be reserved up to three weeks in advance of any beach visit. Reserved beach wheelchairs are transported by a county-sponsored driver to the users, a system that has some obvious inefficiencies.
The FBI robotics team presented their ideas to the commission in a clever “skit” form, demonstrating memorized lines and a great depth of topic research and understanding.
Recognizing the flaws of the current wheelchair access system—special mats that cause beach erosion and the arduous chair reservation and delivery system—students proposed a shelter prototype “pod” model. The system is similar to e-bike and e-scooter reservation applications students have used in larger cities. They called their app idea, the BAW for “Beach Accessible Wheelchairs.”
Students said the app they have in mind would allow users to type in their location and discover which beaches have chairs available for the time and date they select. Once a reservation and payment are secured, the user gets a four-digit code to reserve and access a beach wheelchair from a pod storage building at their selected beach.
Students looked at hurricane building codes, spoke with former county commissioners for perspective, read up on disability laws and consulted with general contractors to align their plans. Their research also yielded several federal grants that could provide up to $250,000 for pilot programs creating greater access for the disabled. They also plan to reach out to Uber for a possible partnership, which might allow them to use some of their existing app technology. The cost to develop the app would cost about $35,000, according to the students’ research.
“As a team, we reached out and surveyed more than 50 wheelchair users from the area counties,” said student Emerson Slaughter. “The results suggest that most wheelchair users avoid the beach because they aren’t currently accessible. The data indicates most users would be more likely to go to the beach if the beach wheelchairs were easily accessible. Responses reflect positively that the app and the pod system would make the process of getting a beach wheelchair much easier for their trip to the beach.”
St. Johns County Commissioners thanked students for their ideas and indicated they would take a closer look at making their innovative plans a reality.
“This team realized that even with the existing beach wheelchairs, the distribution of the chair was a problem,” Houston said. “Don’t be deceived by their youth, they are focused and determined to create change for the better.”
The FBI robotics team has advanced to the regional FIRST LEGO League competition, which will be held in late-February at the Prime Osborn Convention Center in Jacksonville.
Photos provided by Bolles Lower School Ponte Vedra Beach
