Batavia students use engineering skills to solve bike path problem

BATAVIA – Three Batavia boys are well on their way to becoming tomorrow’s top engineering designers.

Brothers Aiden and Connor Hulett, along with their friend Owen Meiring, have teamed up to design solutions to engineering challenges using robotics.

The trio is part of the Fox Valley Robotics organization based at Rotolo Middle School in Batavia.

Aiden Hulett, 12, is a seventh-grader at Rotolo while Meiring, 13, is Hulett’s classmate.

Connor Hulett, 10, is a fourth-grade student at Vanguard Gifted Academy in Batavia.

The boys program computers to control mechanical devices they have designed to carry out specific tasks.

Operating on a gigantic table-top display, their motorized robots zip around the surface. Miniature cranes mounted on caterpillar treads operate like the real thing.

To the untrained eye, the activities look like LEGO toys set in motion or versions of 1960s erector sets that the boys of that time could only have imagined.

Last month, Meiring and the Hulett brothers participated in the First LEGO League Challenges at the Illinois Robotics Competition at Elgin Community College.

Out of 54 teams, the trio placed among the top five finalists, judged on technical design and teamwork.

For their project, the boys designed an engineering solution to a challenge that has long faced bicyclists using the Fox River Trail in Batavia.

As bicyclists pedal their way through the downtown on the eastside trail, they are forced to dismount and carry their bikes while they either climb or descend a long concrete stairway located next to the Peace Bridge pedestrian river crossing.

The robotics students have designed a mechanical lift that would allow riders and their bikes, or people pushing baby strollers, to stand on a platform that would carry them up or down the stairway.

Over the past few months, the boys have presented their proposal to the Batavia City Council, the Batavia Bicycle Commission, the Kane County Department of Transportation and other organizations.

“We think that this is a really good idea and we would like to see it installed,” Meiring said.

KDOT Planning Liaison Ryan Peterson said the design indeed could become reality as early as 2021.

“It’s an improvement on what we have now,” Peterson said. “It has been a troublesome part of the bike trail and this would bring a lot of benefit to people using the trail.”

Installing the lift would cost roughly $15,000 to $30,000, Peterson said.

The presentation made by the boys to KDOT was impressive in its research and detail, Peterson said.

“These kids were citing portions of the Americans With Disabilities Act manual,” Peterson said.

Kane County is looking at being a financial partner in helping to fund the project, Peterson said. The project likely would be a joint partnership between the Kane County Forest Preserve District and the Batavia Park District.

Meanwhile, Meiring and the Hulett brothers are looking ahead to their futures.

“I want to be a rocket designer,” Aiden Hulett said.

He and Meiring have already been to NASA’s Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama, experiencing space mission simulators.

Their talents are not limited to the field of science.

Meiring plays the tuba and the piano. Connor Hulett plays guitar, piano and percussion. He also runs cross country and is a swimmer.

The older Hulett swims with the Fox Valley Park District and runs cross country. He plays the trumpet and piano.