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The Imperial Mic Drops, coached by
Steve and Nicole Ciaravino, is a local
FIRST Lego League (FLL) robotics team
from Brandon, Mississippi. FLL consists
of three parts: research project, robotics,
and team building (core values) and is a
world-wide STEM (science, technology,
engineering, and math) community
organization.
The Imperial Mic Drops began after
the students developed a passion for
robotics and research in Venture at
Brandon Elementary School. The team
consists of nine members ranging from
10-13 years old that attend Brandon
Elementary and Brandon Middle Schools.
The Imperial Mic Drops won the
championship award at FIRST Lego
League State Competition at Mississippi
College. The championship award will
allow them to represent the state of
Mississippi at the FLL World Championship
in Houston, Texas, April 17-21, 2018.
As a FLL team, the Imperial Mic Drops
had to design, build, and program a
robot using LEGO MINDSTORMS ®
technology, then compete on a tabletop
playing field, using their robot named
Darth Boto. They also researched a
real-world problem, the contamination
of drinking water from prescription drugs,
and were challenged to develop a
solution. The team learned that most of
the drugs we take are naturally excreted
by our bodies, but some people flush
their pills down the toilet. Unfortunately,
drugs are not completely removed
during the wastewater treatment process
and the water discharged from the
treatment plants ends up in rivers and
lakes and is then used to supply tap
water to communities.
The Imperial Mic Drops developed a
solution to educate the public. They
developed a warning label to be placed
on prescription bags reminding patrons
not to flush medications down the toilet.
Additionally, the team developed an
educational brochure to educate the
public on the proper disposal of
medications.
The
Imperial
Mic
Drops
Advance to World
Championship
Jaime Wheeler
One method of proper disposal is to
place expired or unused medications in
a Ziploc bag of wet coffee grounds.
With the help from two local coffee
shops, East Brandon Coffee Factory
and Mocha Mugs, the team was able
to bag used coffee to assist in proper
medication disposal. The team met with
two local pharmacies, Brandon Discount
Drugs and Olde Towne Drugs while
researching the problem and developing
the solution to educate the public. Both
pharmacies agreed to use the labels,
brochures, and bags of used coffee in
their pharmacies to spread the word
about proper disposal of medications.
The Imperial Mic Drops understand that
they can’t do anything about the
number of drugs people are taking or
wastewater treatment plants, but they
can do something to help educate the
public about this problem. Therefore,
the team hopes to use the educational
tools they developed to change the way
the public disposes of pharmaceuticals.
You can learn more about the team and how to help
them get to FLL World Championship in Houston by
liking them on Facebook, The Imperial Mic Drops.
Hometown Brandon • 15