Tuesday, December 30, 2014YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- Four weeks ago, the Austintown Middle School Smart Cookies robotics team won two awards at a First Lego League competition in Warren. One was for an innovation they designed for a smartphone app to help kids with learning disabilities improve their math skills.
On Monday, they talked to the Youngstown Business Incubator, looking to develop and produce the app.
“We get pitched every day, sometimes as many as 10 times, almost always from adults,” said YBI CEO Jim Cossler. “They did better than a lot of adults that we get coming to us. They went through their presentation in a systematic way, gave a great product description, talked about the problems they're solving and made it clear that they knew the market and had done research.”
The app, called Smart Math, puts students through arithmetic lessons and rewards them with an ingredient at the end of each lesson. At the end of each chapter, the students take a test where they mix the ingredients to make a cookie. If they fail parts of the quiz, the recipe fails and the mixer explodes.
“Kids with ADD [attention deficit disorder] and ADHD [attention deficit hyperactivity disorder] learn best from self-monitoring, self-rewarding and self-recognition, so those three criteria are all met through this app,” said Melinda Doll, one of the team's coaches.
Taylor Baer, one of the six students on the team, said they recognized the need for an education app simply by watching what goes on in their classes.
“We focused on sixth-grade math and students with ADD or ADHD. A lot of us have had experiences with those students, especially through our classes where we noticed they had issues focusing on lessons,” she explained.
Originally, the app was to focus on language arts, but after sending a questionnaire to teachers in their school and the Jackson-Milton Middle School, they found that most teachers see students struggling with arithmetic.
Right now, the Cookies are developing the app for sixth-grade math, but would consider expanding to other grades and subjects should they meet their goals, the team told Cossler.
That initial research, Cossler said, was impressive, but insufficient for the YBI to become involved. He recommended that the Smart Cookies make calls to 100 or so middle schools in six to eight states. If they can get that done, Cossler told the team, the YBI is willing to talk to them again.
“We explained to the kids that they'll have to get a little more information than the assumptive market. They're assuming there's a market because they've talked to teachers and gotten first-person verification,” Cossler said. “That doesn't work. We explained how to do a comprehensive third-person verification [and find out] whether there is a market for this.”
Baer said the Cookies appreciated the advice, which included tips on their presentation and how to approach potential investors.
“We thought it was all helpful advice,” Baer said. “We have no idea what we're doing right now. We've never had experience with this before so everything he told us was a big help.”
The team first got the idea to approach the YBI for help in developing and marketing its app after they volunteered at Silly Science Sunday last fall at Oh Wow! The Roger & Gloria Jones Children's Center for Science & Technology.
“We realized that this could actually happen [and become an app] when we won the Innovation Solution Award at our last competition,” Baer said. “We went to the Silly Science Sunday to volunteer and show off our robots and thought that since the YBI helped all of these other businesses, why not us?”
Next event for the Smart Cookies' is Jan. 10 at Austintown Middle School, where they will compete against 14 other teams, with the winner going to a state tournament. The contests involve presenting a Lego robot designed to complete various tasks, their app and a poster of how they've represented the league's core values.
Even with the work that needs to be done for the First Lego League events, Baer said the group will most likely pursue developing and eventually releasing the app.
“It's been a lot of fun. We've all grown into really good friends. I've worked with three of them for four years straight, so it's fun to [work with them],” she continued. “We'll try to pursue it the best we can. I know we'll have a lot of work to do, but we'll work at it and hopefully complete it.”
Pictured: The Smart Cookies present their idea to Jim Cossler, CEO of the Youngstown Business Incubator.
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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