A team of enterprising young scientists from Gwynne Park Primary have devised a plan to alleviate homelessness by cleaning up the oceans.
And their ground-breaking ideas have won them a place at the WA National District Finals of the FIRST LEGO League WA.
Earlier this month, the Gwynne Park Gadget Gurus took out first prize in the innovation challenge at the Armadale Regional Finals for their social enterprise – Operation Ocean Aid (OOA), beating out more than 30 other teams, some high school-aged.
“It was so exciting, but nerve-wracking – all the other names were called out and I thought we weren’t going to make it,” Serena said.
“Our team was one of the last to be called out – when he finally read out Gadget Gurus, we all screamed. It was really heart-warming,” Jarrad said.
For this year’s innovation competition, teams were asked to solve a problem related to ocean exploration.
“While we would love to explore the ocean, the one thing that would ruin it is the amount of pollution,” Isabella said.
“It’s predicted that by 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish – disgusting right?” Jarrad said.
Roughly eight million tonnes of plastic pollution enter our waterways and oceans each year, and approximately 80 percent of this plastic waste is carried out to the sea through stormwater.
“After researching, we decided that we wanted to stop the rubbish at the source – so we backtracked from the oceans to rivers, stormwater culverts, and street stormwater drains,” Michaela said.
“This solution will start with us, right here in our very own streets,” Jacob said.
The Gadget Gurus plan to achieve this through three initiatives: Drains for Change, Huts for the Homeless, and a CRAB rover.
The students collaborated with experts in the field, using information from the City of Armadale about the local stormwater system, and insights gleaned from the well-known Containers for Change scheme and SERCUL’s Clean ‘Drains, River Gains’ campaign to create their ‘Drains for Change’ concept.
Olyver explained that the Gadget Gurus have designed an organic filter prototype which fits into local street drains stopping rubbish in its tracks before it finds its way into our waterways.
The drains will be monitored in real-time, and alert users when full through an app.
“Imagine this: you walk to the drain, grab a filter full of trash, drop it off at a collection point, and boom! You’ve just earned yourself some cash. Who wouldn’t want to do that?” Jayleah said.
“Our initiative isn’t just about cleaning; it’s about changing behaviour and raising awareness in our community,” Isabella said.
The students hope to gain the support of the City of Armadale, and Containers for Change on their quest to make this idea a reality.
And Ollie is keen for them to link up with the CSIRO who have a program focussed on ending plastic waste.
“They can provide us with partnerships and support to help clean up the ocean,” he said.
But the real beauty of this innovation is what they plan to do with all the rubbish they collect.
“In our research we found there are 450 people who are homeless just in our area of Armadale,” Michaela said.
“This is where we decided to use the plastic we recover to build recycled shelters. This program is called Huts for the Homeless,” Jayden said.
“We aim to build 10 shelters in our first year, with an increase of an extra 15 homes each year.”
“And we have used Makers Empire – a 3D modelling app – to create images and models of what these shelters would look like,” Jarrad said.
“While we plan to start this project in our home of Armadale, we want to quickly expand to coastal suburbs,” Jacob said.
“We created an online survey and were lucky enough to receive photos of drains from people overseas. They were very similar to ours, which makes us believe our solution could work worldwide,” Isabella said.
Their third component is the CRAB rover – an aquatic robotic vacuum cleaner.
“This innovative rover will help clean up plastics that have sunk to the ocean floor, allowing even more people to get involved in cleaning our oceans,” Sadie said.
“We will provide free instructions for building these rovers, inspiring greater participation worldwide,” Jacob said.
“It will be like a worldwide citizen science project,” Jayleah said, who even managed to incorporate a piece of her culture into the CRAB rover design, with seven stars representing the Noongar Seven Sisters story.
Team captain Sadie has been honing her animation skills to create video explainers as part of Operation Ocean Aid’s marketing campaign.
In fact, each team member had a unique role to play in the development and success of this project.
“There’s a range of personalities and skillsets in our team which helps with teamwork – we even each other out,” Michaela said.
“And we rally around each other when we’re stuck on something.”
The way in which this group of Year 5 and 6 students has cooperated to engineer a cohesive solution to two of our society’s most pressing issues is nothing short of gobsmacking.
And it’s clear their win was entirely deserved.
One of their coaches, Angie Delarie, is clearly just as impressed by their concept.
“We’ve been running this program at the school for eight years now, and we’ve had wins before,” she said.
“But this is the first time our students have presented a project that I want to see through to its completion.
“This is achievable – they’ve thought of everything. And I’m so proud.”
The FIRST LEGO League National Finals will be held at Curtin University on December 7.
