Monticello students net regional award with futuristic pet door

ARLINGTON, VA — The 16th annual Toshiba/National Science Teachers Association ExploraVision Awards program, one of the world’s largest K-12 student science and technology competitions, recently announced that a team of two second-grade students from the George L. Cooke School in Monticello is the regional winner in the K-3 grade category. The team is one of only 24 chosen from a total of 4,527 team entries submitted to ExploraVision this year.

The students, Truth Muller and John Paul Mauer, titled their project “The Pet Dream Automatic Pet Door and Tattoo Pen.” The invention would use a combination of a specially designed automatic pet door and a magnetic, metallic Pet Dream Tattoo pen that would allow pet owners to mark their pet. The “tattoo” would be recognized by the pet door whenever the animal chose to come or go, allowing automatic entry and exit. Teacher Linda Randall coached the project.

The Monticello students are winners in the program’s Region 1, which includes Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont.

The ExploraVision program, sponsored by Toshiba and administered by the National Science Teachers Association, challenges students to research scientific principles and current technologies as the basis for designing innovative technologies.

For the next phase of the competition, the winning team, along with students from the other 23 regional winning teams, will create working websites and prototypes of their invention to convey their ideas. Eight finalist teams will be selected in May (four first- and four second-place winners).

For more information or an application for 2009, visit exploravision.org or e-mail exploravision@nsta.org.