High school engineering students create devices for war effort
Results of hackathon include facial recognition device to avoid killing hostages by mistake and seed-planting robot to work the fields around Gaza
Gavriel Fiske is a reporter at The Times of Israel
A group of 11th-grade students studying advanced engineering, robotics and computers has created a group of devices in response to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, the result of a daylong hackathon organized last month by their school, Ben Gurion High School in the central town of Nes Ziona.
The devices were inspired by issues brought up during the war, such as a dedicated facial recognition system for soldiers’ helmets, created in response to the three Israeli hostages who had escaped captivity in Gaza but then were killed in a tragic error by IDF soldiers.
The technology could be pre-programmed with the faces of all the hostages in an attempt to avoid similar situations, team leader Itai Levy said during a segment aired on Channel 13 that featured some of the creations.
“The issue of the hostages really touched us,” Levy said. He explained that although the prototype is essentially a simple web camera with some software attached to a hard hat, most IDF soldiers already have head cameras in which the student’s software could be easily integrated.
Other creations include a portable, hand-held device that can short out electronic equipment and cellphones, disrupting Hamas attempts to communicate or broadcast their activities; a small robot that can navigate Hamas tunnels and gather intelligence; and a smart bracelet that, if the wearer is kidnapped, can raise an alarm and send health information and location data.
In response to reports about the dire conditions of Israeli agriculture in the south, the students also created an autonomous seed planter, a tractor-like robot designed to replant fields in the communities surrounding Gaza without risk to human life.
The hackathon – a daylong event where students form teams and brainstorm to come up with new creations in a competitive atmosphere – is “a way of life, a tradition” at Ben Gurion High School, principal Iris Doron told The Times of Israel.
The school’s technology track always tries to be “contemporary and relevant for today. There were a lot of beautiful ideas,” Doron said. She noted that many graduates from their program go on to “important roles in the IDF.”
For now, the creations are more ideas than finished products ready for the field, but the projects showed “creative thinking, innovation and a genuine desire to contribute to society,” she said, part of the school’s efforts to integrate the events of October 7 and the ongoing conflict into its curriculum.
