East Mountain High School Innovators Secure Top Honors at Governor’s STEM Challenge with Autonomous Wildfire-Fighting Robot

LAS VEGAS – A team of visionary students from East Mountain High School has taken a major step toward protecting New Mexico’s landscapes from the devastating threat of wildfires. Representing the Timberwolves at the New Mexico Governor’s STEM Challenge State Competition Showcase, the “Project Grover” team—comprised of Andy Procter, Alex Tulskikh, Ethan Elmore, and Olivia Gonzales—emerged as one of the competition’s most decorated groups, earning both a Top 8 Award and the coveted People’s Choice Award.

This year’s challenge tasked students with a critical mission: utilizing STEM innovations to help New Mexico communities predict, mitigate, and recover from natural disasters such as wildfires, floods, and extreme heat. For the EMHS team, the mission was personal, as their own community remains deeply connected to the forest environments they sought to protect.

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Meet “Grover”: The Future of Forestry

The team’s winning solution is Grover, an autonomous forestry robot designed to shift the paradigm of wildfire management from reactive suppression to proactive prevention. While traditional methods rely on fighting fires after they have already ignited, Grover acts as a first line of defense in the wilderness.

The robot is engineered to navigate rugged terrain to gather real-time environmental data—a resource the team identified as a critical gap in current fire prevention efforts. Grover’s primary functions include:

• Soil and Environmental Analysis: By analyzing soil composition and moisture levels, Grover can identify “hot zones” where the risk of ignition is highest.
• Autonomous Deployment: The robot is capable of deploying fire-suppression units as a preemptive measure, effectively “fighting the fire before 911 even picks up the phone.”
• Data Standardization: Grover aims to provide a standardized, real-time stream of forest data, allowing fire managers to make informed decisions about controlled burns and resource allocation.

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A Clean Sweep for the Timberwolves

The judges, comprised of leading STEM industry partners from across the state, were impressed by the technical sophistication of the prototype and the team’s comprehensive approach to a complex problem. In addition to the prestige of the Top 8 and People’s Choice titles, each team member was awarded $600 in prize money for their achievement.

“Focusing on wildfires, the leading form of wildfire control is suppression, which is always less effective than prevention,” the team noted on their project website. “Many recent disasters… could have been prevented with better environmental data.”

The success of Procter, Tulskikh, Elmore, and Gonzales highlights the caliber of young scientific talent fostered at East Mountain High School. As the state continues to face increasing climate-related challenges, the innovations presented by these students offer a glimpse into a more resilient future for New Mexico’s forests.