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Innovation project
Each year FLL Challenge teams are tasked with creating an innovation project that solves a real world problem. This year the theme was Unearthed, and teams were challenged to help solve a problem faced by archeologists. Our team chose to focus on reconstructing pottery sherds as the problem we wanted to address!
Our Problem
A problem faced by many archeologists is the time-consuming process of sorting pot sherds found in dig sites and reconstructing them without knowing how they go together.
Why are sherds important?
Sherds are broken pieces of pottery found at dig sites. Sherds are one of the most commonly found artifacts. They are important because they can teach archeologists the way people lived, from their diets to their trade routes. It's a time-consuming process for archeologists to sort them.
Sherds including diagnostic sherds that are rims and bottoms.
Sherds ready to be sorted on a table by an archeologist.
Reconstructed pot (Vessel)
Our Research
We researched in many ways including field trips to Aztalan State Park, the Milwaukee Public Museum, and the Madison Archeology Lab. We met with three archaeologists, including Catharine, Luther, and Bob! We also did an experiment where we pretended to be archaeologists sorting sherds, using a single-colored jigsaw puzzle. All these experiences helped us discover how important sherds are to archeologists.
Aztalan State Park
Milwaukee Public Museum
Madison Archeology Lab
Our Solution
This is our drawing of the Phoenix!
THE PHOENIX
THE PHOENIX
The Phoenix is a robot that will help archaeologists sort pottery sherds using 2d imaging and LIBS, Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy, data. This innovative solution is a friend to all archaeologists!!
Sharing the Phoenix
We shared our project with Catherine an archeologist who works in Greece, Engineers from Rockwell Automation, and roboticists from Washington University and the Italian Institute of Technology. We iterated our design based on their feedback. A HUGE THANK YOU to our experts who helped our team learn and grow our Phoenix project!
Impact
The Phoenix is a powerful tool archaeologists can use to sort sherds and reconstruct vessels, helping them uncover the past and connect with the people before us! Archeologists will be able to save time using the Phoenix and the LIBS and 2D imaging will help them find more matches then ever!!!
Check out this cool infographic about sherds!
MORE COMING SOON!
We are continuing to develop our project and we will update our website soon! :)
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