Tech 101 Kids in the Green Robot Zoo during Hawthorne’s 23rd Annual Cel-Earth-Bration

During Cel-Earth-Bration, the annual Earth Day celebration we have in Hawthorne, NJ, there were many events and exhibits, such as Rizzo’s Reptiles, the Trashion Show, an awards ceremony, and last but certainly not least The Green Robot Zoo.

The Green Robot Zoo took place in the art room. In the “zoo” were robots that help the environment in some way, meant to inspire even more ambitious future projects. There were four different groups contributing to the zoo this year: BATMAN (Business Architecture Technology Mathematics and Artistic Nerds – The JFK Robotics Team), the the Lincoln Middle School Hawthorne Robotics Club, Bergen County Silent Flyers, and Tech 101 Kids.

At the Lincoln Middle School Hawthorne Robotics Club’s station, they presented about 15-20 Arduinos along with showing how they work and how they are programmed.

BATMAN was showing a robot about 2 feet long. 2 feet wide, and 1 foot tall that they made and programmed themselves. They had programmed it to respond to an app on the phone and the movements of an Xbox 360 remote.

Bergen County Silent Flyers. They presented some of the newest quad-copters. They had one large one out with two smaller ones, all controlled by their control. And with all the excitement these days about drones revolutionizing industries like agriculture, everyone was super excited to see their quad-copters up close and hear about what the Bergen County Silent Flyers is about.

At Tech 101 Kids the amazingly talented Brandon was presenting the Biological Oriented Benefactor, Or BOB the Vegetation Relocator for short. BOB is a robot programmed using the Arduino Uno and by using Processing. The Arduino let me program BOB with the ability to roam around, but I used Processing to talk to the Arduino and send directions real time at the touch of a keyboard.

Bryan was presenting the Horizon Fuel Cell Car, a toy car powered by water. The Horizon Fuel Cell Car is a car powered by water in the process powered by electrolysis. Electrolysis is the process so water being separated and being used as energy

Joseph was presenting multiple different robots such as a Coca Cola can with googly eyes, straw arms, and a motor on wheels so that it moved by itself.