Challenge Team Abstract

Team Number: 012 School Name: Bosque School Area of Science: Computer Science Project Title: Fighting fires using autonomous robots

With the increasing amounts of home and forest fires, the danger that fire fighters face has greatly increased. Could a robot be programmed to be able to sense and contain fires? Our project will involve the building and programming of an autonomous robot that has the ability to sense heat from flames, and then fire a flame suppressant at it until the heat subsides. The robot itself will be built to withstand a reasonable amount of heat (We will research optimal building materials to withstand heat) and we will assume that it has an unlimited power supply and indestructible, being that the worst possible situations is that the robot would not be able to move. The robot will have 3 basic sensors: infrared, ultrasonic, and temperature monitor. All three sensors will be continuously rotating at 360 degrees. It will enter a burning house and navigate a logical path until the temperature sensor detects higher heat or the infrared sensor detects fire. At this moment the robot would use its infrared sensor to calculate the distance between the robot and fire. It would plug this number into some basic trigonometry equations, which would tell the robot how it needs to move relative to the fire, so when sprayed, the flame suppressant will hit the fire with the most accuracy possible. After a certain amount of time, the robot would retrace its steps to exit the building. The program will be continuously outputting real-time sensor data in a 360 degree graph and motor status. In the future, a robot like this could provide fire fighters with key information about the surroundings and fire type.

Team Members

Team Mail

• Kenny E. Sutherland
• Will J. McMain
• Kai P. Mammoser
• Nathan L. Perkins

Sponsoring Teachers

• Dorothy I. Ashmore
• Debra M. Loftin

Project Advisor(s)