Ramaz Engineers Win and Wow at CIJE Innovation Day

Ramaz students wowed the judges at the CIJE Innovation Day engineering competition, including with projects that came in first and third place in their respective categories! The Center for Initiatives in Jewish Education's Innovation Day allows students to design and present original engineering projects that solve world problems. All Ramaz freshmen participated as part of their required Engineering 1 class, and all sophomores enrolled in Engineering 2 also participated. All participating students have been working on their protects since the beginning of second semester, showing admirable dedication and skill throughout.

The competition was judged in two phases. First, students submitted websites, slideshows, or other electronic documentation of their projects. Judges evaluated the students on the extent of their research about the problem they sought to solve, their research about the project's potential users, and their documentation on their engineering process. The second phase occurred live at Innovation Day, which took place at the American Dream Mall in New Jersey. Students chose whether to give a five-minute presentation and demonstration, or to set up their project in "science fair format" and demonstrate as judges toured the projects. During this second phase, other students judged the prototype, the complexity of the prototype, the uniqueness of the project's solution, and the engineers' presentation.

Sophomore Avi L. impressed the judges with his project, TecBox, which helps users get quick answers to all sorts of questions, in an accessible format. The user simply speaks into the box, and the machine understands the question and speaks the answer back. TecBox uses an esp32 microcontroller connected to a microphone, to record a spoken message, convert it to text, and send it to ChatGPT. It then receives the reply from ChatGPT, converts it back to speech, and plays it for the user. Avi demonstrated a functional prototype for the judges and won an amazing third place in the Personal Care category.

Three freshmen won first place for Environmental Engineering with their group project, Fighting Fires. The driving question for winners Chloe A., Celan R.S., and Joseph S. was: "How can we efficiently take out uncontrolled wildfires before they spread, and prevent them from even occurring to begin with?" They designed a prototype that prevents fires before they occur by measuring the moisture level of the soil and activating a water pump for soil it deems too dry. It also uses a flame detector and sprays water until a detected flame is safely extinguished. The team presented a working prototype at Innovation Day, successfully detecting dry soil and adding water until a sufficient moisture level was achieved. The students then simulated a fire by lighting several paper "trees," and, in full view of the judges, their prototype successfully detected and extinguished the fires. Environmental Engineering was a hotly-contested category, but judges held the Ramaz engineers as the rightful winners.

Kol hakavod to our winners and all our participants!