OMRO, Wis (SPECTRUM NEWS)- A group of students at Omro High School will head to New York City next month after advancing to the top 20 in a national student engineering competition. The students are taking part in the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow contest, where students are challenged to use math and technology to design something that addresses a problem.

For engineering students at Omro High School, the problem they wanted to tackle was dangerous ice conditions on lakes and rivers. Students are in the process of designing a robot which can be deployed onto icy surfaces and measure ice thickness and relay the data back to land. Since mid-December students have been testing the design and fabricating the parts.

“It means a lot because we can save lives with this thing instead of having people go out on the ice that is too thin and risk falling through.” Says Omro senior Matthew Gutchie

In April students will travel to New York to pitch the design to staff at Samsung. If they win Omro High School could receive up to $100,000 in technology upgrades from Samsung.