Caroline Cardinale of West Windsor is a finalist for the FIRST Tech College Robotics Dean’s List Award, a national robotics award. A 10th grade student at the Hun School in Princeton, she is one of only two finalists out of about 135 teams and 10,000 student roboticists in New Jersey. Cardinale will be competing with more than 100 other finalists from around the world for the highest award presented by FIRST to an individual high school student. It is based not only on robot building and programming but on outreach and service in the community to support STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math).
Although Cardinale has been interested in STEM since she was very young, building with Legos and playing with her own Legos robotics kit, she knows that not all children have the opportunity to get that kind of exposure and has been performing outreach to change that. After she started and ran a Junior FIRST Lego League team in an underserved area, WW-P Girl Scout organization saw its value and has been organizing and running several teams.
She coached and mentored most of these teams with other WAGS members and Girl Scouts. She has also been involved in many other outreach activities, including the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab robot expo, the Midknight Mayhem FRC team meet expo, and a West Windsor Night Out community fair booth. She helped with the Cookie Carnage FTC Meet, and at the NJ FTC kickoff helped with a presentation on how other teams can become an NJ FTC showcase team.
Five years ago Cardinale’s Lego Robotics team stood stunned at their qualifying tournament when they realized they designed their robot to an incorrect game challenge. “I can fix this!” said the sixth grader, and proceeded to modify the robot in a half-hour on a cafeteria table in time for their first match. Green Machine did well enough to qualify for the regional championships. The following year they won the first place Championship’s Award and became one of only 80 FLL teams worldwide to attend the World Robotics Festival in St. Louis. It was there that Cardinale discovered First Tech Challenge, the next level of FIRST robotics geared for small teams of high school students. With several other team members, she convinced the coaches, Andrea Mandel, Helen Rancan, and her mother, Jan Cardinale, to help start the more advanced team and W.A.G.S. (We Are Girl Scouts) was born.
Although her nomination was submitted by Mandel and Rancan, the award comes from the team. “We sat down as a team and discussed it,” says Mandel. “They were wonderfully supportive. They are an outstanding all girls team, and although everybody contributes they recognized how Caroline goes way beyond requirements in commitment and accomplishment in all areas. There was an incredible amount of cheering and hugging when it was announced she had won at the New Jersey State Championships.”
W.A.G.S., now three years old, is going to the World Championships — one of about 100 teams out of 4,500 worldwide. The girls are excited to compete on a world level as well as to support Cardinale, who will be going to a luncheon with FIRST founder Dean Kamen and other honors. She will have to juggle in order to support her team in yet another set of competitions.
The team meets two or three times per week, but Cardinale can often be found working on the robot on other evenings and school vacations. “She excels at design, building, and troubleshooting, but is also heavily involved in the electronics and programming,” said Mandel.
“She is the go-to team member when the robot needs any kind of modifications or fixing, and she is steady under the pressure of instant changes when they are needed at competition. She is one of our two drivers. This year she has taken independence to a new level. When she saw a problem with our electronics reliability, or the need to change to a four wheel drive power train, she just went ahead and did it. She is always looking to learn something or to teach another member of the team.”
Her favorite part of robotics is building. “I can be as creative as I want to be,” she says. “There are no instructions. Troubleshooting involves a lot of trial and error.” Cardinale plans to study mechanical or aeronautical engineering after high school. “I’ve always liked airplanes and would love to design and build them.” Her dream college will specialize in engineering and science.
“I am looking forward to meeting teams from all over the world and seeing other top teams that advanced and learning how they built their robots,” says Cardinale.
