Naga robotics student champs set to vie in competition in US

By Armie Gunay NAGA CITY --- After winning the Robotics and Intelligent Machines Category of the National Science and Technology Fair 2018, participant Grade 12 students from the Camarines Sur National High School (CSNHS) are now preparing for a bigger competition in robotics, this time to be held in May, this year, in Pennsylvania, USA. The team, composed of Keith Russel Cadores, Joscel Kent Manzanero, Gwyne Celeste Aguilar, Eugene Rivera and Joriel Brinton Frias, recently won the competition held in Tagaytay City last February 5- 9, 2018, with their invention named as Solar Tracking Arduino Routed Kirigami, or STARK. The device is designed as a sunflower plant, with six solar panels that track and follow the sunlight to capture solar energy. The winning device is equipped with a sensor that responds to temperature and humidity. Its panels fold automatically in the absence of sunlight and when there are signs of impending rain. The team used scrap iron and metal to create the machine. Although it is still in its initial experimental stage, the device already allows charging of cellular phones. The machine is a product of a community-based research subject under the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) curriculum of the Department of Education (DepEd) in Senior High School. The team hopes to transform the project in a larger scale, enough to provide energy and supply the power needs of a building. The STARK team, guided by their coach-teachers and school officials, continues to explore and upscale their project even as they hope that their model project will win in the competitions in the United States this summer. CEPPIO