Remote-Controlled Bowling Pinsetter

Abstract

Team Turkey has been paired with Marvin Picollo School, a special education school, in Reno, NV to build an assistive device for their adaptive physical education courses. Buddy Lowe, the school’s adaptive P.E. instructor, wanted Team Turkey to construct a remote-controlled bowling pin setter for his classes. The goal of this project was to construct a device that allows Buddy to use bowling as a class activity to help his students develop gross motor skills. Although Buddy already uses bowling in his class, the time he loses by manually resetting the pins between turns causes his students to lose focus. As a solution, Team Turkey constructed a device similar to the pinsetter at the end of a bowling alley. The pinsetter, however, is controlled by a wireless remote and allows Buddy to keep the attention of his students while resetting the pins at the same time. The device also resets pins faster than by hand, allowing more students to use the device to further develop their motor skills within their allotted P.E. time.