VEX Wildfire Rescue NM

Saving People and Animals During Wildfires

New Mexico Supercomputing Challenge

Truman Middle School

1. The Problem

Wildfires are dangerous in New Mexico. They can destroy forests, homes, and farms.

During a wildfire, people and animals may need help. Firefighters sometimes have trouble finding them because roads are blocked by trees, rocks, or fire.

Our Big Question:

Can we use a VEX robot and a computer program to find people and animals faster during a simulated wildfire?

2. Our Idea

We will build a small rescue robot using our VEX V5 robot.

Our robot will travel through a model forest and look for people and animals.

The robot will try to:

  1. Find people who need help.
  2. Find animals such as dogs, horses, and deer.
  3. Avoid obstacles like trees and rocks.
  4. Stay away from simulated fire.
  5. Find a short and safe path.

3. Our Hypothesis

We think a robot that uses sensors and a computer program to choose its path will find people and animals faster than a robot that follows the same path every time.

4. Our Wildfire Model

We will build a small New Mexico forest using cardboard, toy trees, houses, rocks, and animal figures.

We will use colors to help the robot recognize objects.

  • 🔵 Blue = Person
  • 🟡 Yellow = Animal
  • 🔴 Red = Fire
  • 🟢 Green = Safe area
  • ⬛ Black = Obstacle

We will not use real fire. Everything will be a safe classroom simulation.

5. How Will Our Robot Work?

Our VEX robot will use sensors.

Distance Sensor: Helps the robot see obstacles in front of it.

Optical Sensor: Helps the robot recognize colored markers.

Inertial Sensor: Helps the robot turn in the correct direction.

VEX Brain: Controls the robot and follows our program.

When the robot finds a blue or yellow marker, it will stop and report that it found a person or animal.

6. Our Computer Simulation

We will use Python to create a simple computer map of our forest.

The computer map will have squares representing roads, trees, obstacles, fire, people, and animals.

We will test three ways for the robot to search.

Method 1: Fixed Path

The robot follows the same route every time.

 

Method 2: Grid Search

The robot searches one area at a time.

Method 3: Smart Search

The computer helps the robot choose a shorter route and find a new path when an obstacle appears.

We want to discover which method works best.

7. Our Experiment

We will:

  1. Build our wildfire forest model.
  2. Place toy people and animals in different locations.
  3. Program the VEX robot to search.
  4. Use a timer to measure how long it takes.
  5. Count how many people and animals it finds.
  6. Move some obstacles and repeat the experiment.
  7. Compare the three search methods.

We will try each method 10 times.

8. Collecting Our Data

Search Method

Time (Seconds)

People Found

Animals Found

Fixed Path

Grid Search

Smart Search

We will calculate the average time for each method and create a bar graph.

9. What Will We Learn?

We want to answer these questions:

  • Which search method is fastest?
  • Can our robot find people and animals?
  • Can our robot avoid obstacles?
  • Does changing the path help the robot?
  • Can computer programs help robots work better?

10. Why Is This Project Important?

New Mexico has many forests, farms, animals, and communities that can be affected by wildfires.

Our project will help us learn how robots and computers could support firefighters and rescue workers in the future.

Our VEX robot is only a small classroom model. It cannot work in a real wildfire, but it can help us learn about rescue technology.

Our Mission

Use a VEX robot, coding, science, and math to find better ways to locate people and animals during simulated wildfires in New Mexico.

Our Team Motto:

"Small Robots, Big Ideas, Saving Lives!"

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