From
The News & Advance in Virginia. In the picture, Matthew Feinman places his Lego robot on the obstacle course at Paul Munro Elementary School.
Carson Ferguson, a Paul Munro Elementary School fifth-grader, got a surprise when she found out how many people can’t see well or at all in the United States.
“We thought there would be a few people,” Carson said, her eyes widening as she recounted what happened when another student went online to check the numbers. “He looks and … that’s not a few!”
As it turns out, there are about 25 million people with blindness or uncorrectable vision problems in the United States, more than the population of Texas. The national figures served to galvanize Ferguson and the nine others on the school Lego team as they researched transportation for people affected by blindness.
Dec, 4, Carson and her teammates from the Lynchburg elementary school competed in a state FIRST Lego League team competition at James Madison University after earning that right at a regional competition on Nov. 14. They will be the only Lynchburg-area elementary school team in the competition.
Their mission is to complete Lego robot challenges and also to present their research on a transportation issue, which is this year’s theme.
In the beginning the students cast a wide net to learn about transportation issues in Lynchburg, conducting research that included talking to City Manager Kimball Payne.
The idea to focus on transportation for the blind was just one of many thrown out during early brainstorming about transportation problems, but students say their interest grew as they learned about the topic.
They came up with an idea for an invention — the “Touch-N-Rush” — a cane equipped with a Global Positioning System to help those with blindness navigate.
They also created a skit to present their research and invention: a newscast for the fictional WBNT (blind news today).
The team is the only Division I Lynchburg-area team from the regional tournament to advance to the Virginia/District of Columbia state competition. Two Division II (at least one student 12 or older) Lynchburg-area teams also got the go-ahead to advance to state: a team of home-schooled students and a team from Timberlake Christian School in Forest.
The Paul Munro students said the judges told them that they were especially impressed with the team’s research, which has continued even after the regional tournament.
On Monday, Seven Hills Lions Club members came to Paul Munro to discuss issues in blind transportation with the students. One of those members was Bill Hadden, a Lynchburg resident who is blind and who has a guide dog.
“I was really impressed, to be honest,” said Hadden, of meeting the students and hearing about their project. “They did not seem to be intimidated by disability, unlike many older people, who are intimidated by my disability.”
Hadden said he had never heard of a GPS-equipped cane, but knew about GPS devices available to vision-impaired people, some in the $1,500 range.
“Unfortunately, the average blind person can’t afford that kind of technology, but I don’t want to take away from the kids,” Hadden said.
“Someone has to do the dreaming.”
From The News & Advance in Virginia. In the picture, Matthew Feinman places his Lego robot on the obstacle course at Paul Munro Elementary School.
