Bridging The Gap

Location

Canada
Full Invention Name: 
a communication toolkit that is a stepping stone to engaging a senior out of their loneliness
Team Name: 
The Socialites
Team Number: 
9654
Team Description: 
We are team 9654, the Socialites. We are a team of 8 students from Oakville who have developed a communication toolkit as a stepping stone in the curing of loneliness in seniors. We created this product as our project, but we met seniors and people in their lives, and now hope to sell it to the geriatric community, we already have over 6 orders. As an FLL team we competed at a Regional event and were ranked in the top 8 to move on to the Ontario Provincials. We earned the Champions award and were chosen to go to the World Festival in Saint Louis, MO to represent the Province of Ontario. We meet twice a week to discuss and work on robot, project, and core values, in an after-school robotics club called E-Bots. One of our challenges was that we did not know each other before FLL but we get along very well, contributing to our name the Socialites. Another challenge we will be facing is that one of our team members will not be going with us to the Worlds.
Category: 
Connected
Brief Submission Description: 
Our product is a communication toolkit designed to help bridge the age and communication gap between seniors and juniors, and it is a stepping stone towards curing loneliness. When we sat down and came up with our project idea, one of the ideas that came up several times was that we had a hard time having a conversation with our grandparents and that we didn't know what to say to them. Eventually that thought evolved into this toolkit. It consists of three decks of cards; one for the seniors to ask the kids, one for the kids to ask the seniors, and a few topic cards to pick up and discuss. We created a first draft of the questions and topics then we looked them over, and improved them gradually until we had the questions we have now. Part of our product is that while we are conversing with the seniors, we are learning about history at the same time, because each senior lived through different events in their lifetime and this toolkit helps the juniors learn about them.
Team Website
http://www.lonelysenior.ca