Scratch

This sort of links back to another post: http://scratch.mit.edu/forums/viewtopic.php?id=67745

Anyways, who is doing FLL this year?
My team is the Untitled Geniuses: We started with Jr. FLL in 2006 with the team name Nano Torpedoes. In our first year in FLL, we became the Power Torpedoes for the Power Puzzle year, and won the rookie team award at the Catlin Gabel Qualifying Tournament. The next year, Climate Connections, we became the Untitled Geniuses, and won 3rd place in the Catlin Gabel Qualifying Tournament as well as the Young Team award in the Oregon State Robotics (ORTOP) Tournament. In 2009, we attained the same award as the previous year in the qualifying tournament, and received the top robot performance award with a perfect score of 400 points in the ORTOP tournament. You can see the perfect run, as well as our amazing skid-steer robot PackMule here: www.scratch.mit.edu/ext/youtube/?v=o7RiDjcm5Dg. The next year, Body Forward, we won 1st place in the Catlin Gabel Qualifying Tournament as well as 2nd place in the ORTOP tournament. We were then selected to go onto the LegoLand North America Tournament, were we received the 2nd place robot design award. That was the last year PackMule was used. This year, we won 2nd place runner up at the Catlin Gabel Qualifying Tournament, as well as the top robot performance award (with a score of 191 points), and are awaiting the ORTOP tournament in January.

Here's our project:
The Problem
The Center for Disease Control estimates that every year there are approximately 76 million cases of food borne illnesses in the US with about 5,000 deaths, a third are due to beef and poultry. Despite inspection of every cow by the USDA meat can get contaminated by bacteria during slaughter. Also it is important that the meat is always below 40 degrees, otherwise bacteria will grow and the meat will become very infectious. Then the meat has to be cooked at an internal temperature of 160 degrees to make sure the bacteria are killed. Also, bacteria from meat can get onto kitchen surfaces, and from there, can get onto other foods, like fruits and vegetables. This is called cross contamination. To solve these problems, we created our proposal, the SafeSteak.



The Solution
The SafeSteak encloses your meat in a steel box with an opening side at one end. This way, bacteria from the meat can’t go elsewhere. The idea is that your butcher will place meat into your SafeSteak, and then close it. When you get home, you can place the SafeSteak in the oven, and the steel box will heat and cook the meat inside. That way, you never touch your meat, and you can’t get sick from bacteria on your hands. To make sure your meat doesn’t warm up in the store or at home, the SafeSteak has a color changing thermometer that turns red when the temperature of the meat goes above 40 degrees in the store or at home. It also has an incorporated cooking thermometer that will make sure the meat temperature will be 160ºF when cooked, because that is the point where you can be sure that most of the bacteria is gone from the meat. To prevent the SafeSteak from exploding in the oven from heated gases, the SafeSteak has a small hole covered by aluminum foil. When the pressure inside the SafeSteak gets too high, the aluminum foil will rip. The SafeSteak won’t be too expensive either. You buy a SafeSteak for yourself, which costs 3 to 4 dollars depending on the size, and then you can reuse it over and over again. It will also be recyclable at your local store. Remember: the more SafeSteaks in circulation, the cheaper they will be!

Sources
We researched the beef life cycle and beef safety issues on various online sources including the USDA. To learn more about beef, we visited Greg Malinowski’s organic beef farm. We reviewed our solution with the USDA food inspector Dr. Barrows. We presented our solution at Cedar Mill Community Library as well as at ACCESS Academy.

Bibliography
http://www.globalindustrial.com/p/foodservice/handling/timing-temperature/cdn-high-heat-oven-
thermometer?utm_source=google_pr&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Timing-and-Temperature-
google_pr&infoParam.campaignId=T9F
http://www.google.com/patents?id=COIlAAAAEBAJ&printsec=drawing&zoom=4#v=onepage&q&f=false
Malinowski Farm
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/Food_Safety_Education/Check_Your_Steps/index.aspOne
http://www.foodsafety.gov/
http://www.explorebeef.org/beefsafetyfaq.aspx
http://www.cornell.edu
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle_feeding#Integrated_livestock-crop_farming_systems
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feedlots
http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/free-range-organic-meat-myth.aspx
http://riley.nal.usda.gov/nal_display/index.php?info_center=8&tax_level=2&tax_subject=10&topic_id=1004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4796909.stm
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/factsheets/beef_from_farm_to_table/index.asp
http://animalrights.about.com/od/animalsusedforfood/a/GrassFedBeef.htm
Michael Pollan
Science Class with Ms. Christian and Mr. Garcia
www.fmi.org/docs/media/bg/antibiotics.pdf
http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/science_and_impacts/impacts_industrial_agriculture/prescription-
for-trouble.html
The USDA
The FDA

What are you guys doing? Post a reply, and check out my teams website at safenow.webs.com as well as this project about FLL: http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/harrypotter345/2221376.

Good luck in your tournaments!