Five years ago, one of our first research fellows wanted to make the bus ride home even safer on the first days of school as everyone is trying to get to know our youngest, most vulnerable, bus riders. Owen Rossi-Keen sought out a mentor in logistics and partnered with FedEx to create the Baden Academy Dragon Tag System.
This year Baden Academy has grown to include a Dragon Tag to include every student in this cutting-edge student transportation safety feature.
What is a Dragon Tag? Let’s let Addy explain…
The reader is now in the gym, right where students leaving for the bus pass by. We can see on the TV in the gym and the monitor in the main office who is getting on the bus and if they are supposed to be a pickup. Addy does not describe the QR Code on the back of the tag. The QR Code contacts the database through any cell phone. With a password, we can quickly look up emergency contact information, bus information, and a student’s address.
The tags have changed shape and size
The kids (K-3) have the silhouette of our own “Blaze” dragon from the wall by the office. It is the symbol of someone under the care of a grand mama dragon, yet with wings to fly. We added a new design for the older kid’s tags with an Ouroboros dragon. It is a picture that dates back to ancient Egypt and ancient Greece. Its name comes from οὐρά (oura), “tail” + βορά (bora), “food”, from βιβρώσκω (bibrōskō), “I eat”. It is a symbol of being creation and recreation. A symbol that apply represents the genesis of our Dragon Tags.
I am going to get a bit nerdy and admit a predisposed love of the Ouroboros dragon. It occurs in the discovery of the chemical structure of Benzene (a dangerous yet extraordinarily important chemical). The organic chemist August Kekulé described his eureka moment “The atoms were gamboling before my eyes. This time the smaller groups kept modestly in the background. My mental eye, rendered more acute by the repeated visions of the kind, could now distinguish larger structures of manifold conformation: long rows, sometimes more closely fitted together; all twining and twisting in snake-like motion. But look! What was that? One of the snakes had seized hold of its own tail, and the form whirled mockingly before my eyes. As if by a flash of lightning I awoke; and this time also I spent the rest of the night in working out the consequences of the hypothesis.”
The process of creating these tags and the systems for reading them took a combined effort of hundreds of hours of our staff. We are thrilled to announce this is the first year we did not have to call FedEx to troubleshoot problems!!! Thank you Zack Cameron and Mat Davis, Ramona Sangermano and Chelsea Mason, Mr. Jake and Principal Jeffers! Thank you for all your hard work.
Programming and assembling the tags forces the whole school to concentrate on putting “Always Safe” at the forefront of our goals. The logistics and safety of our children is a priority. We are humbled by the responsibility and work hard to rise to the challenge and make it better every year.
Fellowship Applications are now being accepted at Grow a Generation and our partner schools. What meaningful project can you conceive?
