Exciting news from Waterloo School! We had a great time at this year’s Regional Austin Energy State Science Fair, bringing home some big wins. Elizabeth Everston won 1st in her category, Engineering Mechanics.
We also have a 5th place winner in an alternate category, Cordelia Bryant! Please join us in congratulating our students. We are so proud of them and are excited to see where they go next!
Innovative robotic movement in action
The title of Elizabeth’s first-place project was “Negative Pneumatic Driven Bipedal Movement Foam Actuators.”
What is a pneumatic actuator? It’s a mechanical component that helps a robot achieve motion using negative air pressure — in this case, bipedal or two-legged movement.
In her project, Elizabeth describes how traditional “robotic actuators can be expensive to produce, unpredictable, and unsafe to use in some environments. However negative pneumatic actuators have the capacity to be safer, reliable, and more economic than their current counterparts.”
You can hear more about her project, which she will now be taking to the state level, in the video below. You can also view her whole presentation here.
Fostering a passion for discovery
From science fairs to college credit, Waterloo encourages extracurricular learning and student-led discovery. If you would like to learn about our values at Waterloo School, you can read more on our mission page.
