TAMPA, Fla. — Students at Strawberry Crest High School will represent Florida in the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow STEM Competition. 

The group created technology to alert coaches when athletes are in medical danger, and as the state winners, they’ll now go on to compete in the national competition next month.

What You Need To Know

  •  Students will represent Florida in national Samsung Solve for Tomorrow STEM Competition

  •  $100,000 prize package for school is at stake

  •  Students created technology to alert coaches when athletes are in medical danger

There is a big prize at stake, $100,000 in Samsung technology and classroom supplies, but these students have an even bigger goal in mind.

“This is our protype that we have drawn out,” said Lydia Linares, a senior at Strawberry Crest High School, as she showed what her and her classmates have been working on since October. “We were tasked with a project where we are going to try to develop a device that would notify coaches and athletic trainers if an athlete is having a heat related illness incident.”

Linares said when they first started brainstorming, they knew they wanted to create something that would actually help people. 

“In the past, especially over the summers, there have been a lot of heat-related illnesses in high schools and competitive teams all across Florida,” she said. “So it’s very personal to us, and we saw this happening and we were like, well, we could do something about it.”

They’re working on the finishing touches, and Lydia explains how the temperature sensor would fit into football gear: “The band and the actual device should be separate, and we should just be able to stick the little temperature probe into the band.”

The sensor would send an athlete’s body temperature to their coach through an app in real time. 

“This allows them to continuously monitor athletes core body temperature throughout the time they’re at practice, conditioning, or in a game,” Linares said. “Hopefully this would prevent heat-related illnesses in the future.”

Their teacher, Christina Rutledge, says it’s been amazing watching her students work over the last several months, perfecting every detail, and while the prize package would be nice, she says students’ main goal is to get this device in use in high schools across the state.

“We hope this idea continues on, and the prototype works, and they can actually implement it because even if we can just save one life, it’ll be worth it,” said Rutledge.

Linares said that has been their driving force, knowing that a group of teenagers are creating something that could affect the lives of so many people for years to come.

Three schools will be selected as national winners in the competition.  

Winners will be announced on April 15.