Amanda Clawson and her Grade 4 students recently won a contest naming Hancock Health’s new da Vinci 5 surgical system robot.

The Sugar Creek Elementary teacher said, “I just went for it, and the kids were excited about it. I didn’t really think anything would come of it or that we would win because the whole county could enter, but it was just exciting for the kids to win.”

The robot, one of 1,700 in the country, is used in surgeries for hernias, gallbladder and uterine-related issues. Other Indianapolis-area hospitals also have the technology that allows patients to have minimally invasive procedures, faster healing and shorter downtimes.

Student Lili Appleget said, “There’s like little microscopes, and it’ll poke little holes so it can get to what it needs to get to.”

Appleget who came up with the idea to name it “Gizmo.” The fourth graders voted on the name and submitted it for the contest. Lili thinks the name will make kids comfortable when they are in the hospital, and that it’s easy to pronounce.

Clawson’s class got to take a trip to the hospital to learn how the robot works. For the teacher, the experience was not just about winning, but also about giving her students a chance to see the impact of their efforts and learn that they can be a part of something much bigger than themselves. “Especially to have them have important community members recognize their writing and pay attention to their writing. They don’t get that very often.”

The teacher hopes to enter future classes in similar competitions to show her students that they have a powerful voice in science, technology, and beyond. “It was fun, engaging. It got the kids to write more. Even if it wasn’t a writing project, it was more of a STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) project, but we included writing with it, so something math related could be fun in the future or continuing our writing journey.

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