Back in January, MJ Linane’s ORR engineering students learned that the drone project they entered in the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow contest had won them a hefty prize package worth $25,000 in technology for STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, math) education at the high school as the statewide winners. Now, months later, the students were once again reminded of how ingenuity and cooperation can be a prize-winning combination.

On May 23, the engineering class was visited by a virtual Samsung Santa of sorts.

Linane watched the students unfold and open a large cardboard box crammed with all the modern day delights of modern day teens – Chromebooks, laptops, Wi-Fi speakers, and a big flat screen TV.

“Pretty sick!” Linane said while filming the students opening the box, which was later posted to Facebook. One of the students commented that it felt like Christmas.

As the students unpacked the big box, they discovered even more cool items, including the latest in vacuum technology.

“We got a Roomba!” Linane cried out. “That’s handy, right?”

The students pulled out about 40 Chromebooks in all. “We supplied half the school with more Chromebooks!” said Linane.

More unmarked boxes yielded a bunch of Samsung Galaxy tablets, touchscreen laptops, and a variety of different types of Chromebooks.

Pulling out the robot vacuum cleaner, one student said, “We should name it!”

They settled on “Henry.”

Back in September, Linane’s engineering students expressed an interest in drone technology and developing a drone tech program at the high school. The team drafted a proposal to submit to the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow Contest, a national competition that challenges students to creatively use STEAM skills to address real-world issues and inspire change in their local communities.

The contest encourages students to explore the use of technology to address or solve a community-based issue. One essential characteristic of the Tri-Town, especially in Rochester, is the presence of cranberry growing and its significant economic impact on the region. And with the students’ interest in exploring drone technology, Linane saw the perfect marriage between technology and tradition.

The students designed a drone that could monitor soil conditions in cranberry bogs as climate change-induced seasonal droughts are dealing a direct impact on the cranberry industry. With the use of drones, farmers can implement targeted watering around selective areas of the bogs that are detected as being particularly dry.

“I thought it was fascinating,” Linane said. “It was cool.” The students designed and assembled the drones and coordinated with local cranberry growers to teach them how they could implement the technology at their own bogs.

Linane said UMass Dartmouth and the Cape Cod Cranberry Grower’s Association have contacted him with interest in partnering with the ORR teacher and his students.

“It’s been really great, a really great experience,” said Linane.

By Jean Perry

We had gone on a vacation to Maine. She had never been to Maine or really anywhere in her entire life. But now that she had found the fortitude to free herself, without benefit of medical or psychological intervention, she was ready to travel a bit. I was thrilled.

Ma lived most of my life with crippling anxiety issues that imprisoned not only her, but her entire family. The idea that now we could travel about freely was a tremendous release. Escape.

My thoughts at that time, some thirty years ago now, were simply that we could have some much delayed fun. She could be refreshed of mind and spirit, renewed as a thinking person, and simply put, happier.

The happier part of my fantasy was tested and refuted many times as Ma’s final decades came to pass. Yet there was laughter, joy, and lots of, “Ma, look at that!” moments as we slowly wound our way through backcountry roads and highway traffic jams.

I took her to places I felt she’d enjoy – vistas that overlooked vast swaths of trees, hills covered in wildflowers, and skies marbled by clouds. We ate lunches in small cafés geared to older folks – tea served in teapots, doilies hung in tiny windowpanes, miniature cupcakes. She bloomed in those moments and became an independent person who could, in fact, enjoy a moment’s beauty.

We visited New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont and as many local nooks and crannies as I could find in southeastern Massachusetts. We picnicked in the car. We watched swimmers from the beach parking lots, kids flying kites. We ate ice cream and fried rice by the pints. We enjoyed each other’s company because we played at being friends versus mother and daughter. It worked during those magical hours.

Because her sister-in-law wore a little make-up when she was out in society, Ma bought some from her Avon representative and took the time to “doll herself” up whenever we were going out. My mother in make-up. A mask that let her ease into the character she wanted to be while shopping for some trinket in a tourist shop. I was witnessing her metamorphosis. She held tightly to my arm for balance.

The simple act of walking became increasingly problematic for Ma in those later years. Always a bit overweight, never walking more than a few yards hither and yon about her postage-stamp sized property and tiny cottage, her muscle tone didn’t exist. But her stubbornness did, and that strength of mind over physical limitations allowed her to slowly step along. “We can make it,” was all the encouragement she needed throughout her late 60s and 70s as we hobbled to and from the car on our adventures. Joy.

The wheelchair years finally came. She could scoot around her home with the aid of a walker, but outside and going on adventures meant a wheelchair was necessary. I learned how to swing that device in and out of my hatchback, expressly purchased for this purpose, with as much ease as my back would allow. By the end of an afternoon of shopping, I’d be quite exhausted and in pain. It was worth it. Ma had had a good day. That was all that mattered – her happiness hard fought.

The clock ticked down. The moment came when standing and pivoting were out of the question, when living at home was no longer an option, when a new reality, a nearly nightmarish reality would claim her freedom and mine. Reality – no one escapes.

Those final years when aging collapsed her body into a mass that would not move independently followed by hearing, speaking, and seeing loss, all systems shutting down was tremendously difficult. A slow death by aging.

My guilt at not spending more time sitting with her in the nursing home weighs heavily on me. An hour or so a week was all I could handle those last couple of years. Other family members were with Ma daily, so I felt I could withdraw a bit and save myself the emotional agony of seeing her so diminished. But each visit was, in fact, a living hell. She told me many times she didn’t want to wake up any longer. She thought she heard a baby crying and wanted to find it and give comfort. She thought she saw her mother hovering in the window valance and couldn’t understand why she would be there.

She received good kind care in the hands of CNAs whose role was to wash, feed, toilet, and then repeat for the rest of Ma’s days. My appreciation for these hardworking souls is unrivaled. Ma had her favorites at first. After a while, even that didn’t matter any longer.

As I massaged her unsupportive feet and legs, applying gallons of body lotion, we could no longer reminisce about our precious trips or lunches out as ladies holding teacups. She couldn’t hear me and she really couldn’t reply. Yet a serene look would come over her face as my hands swam across her body, a body that I had loved and held as tenderly as a baby. The gift of touch I would tell myself.

Knowing that her opinion of me had always run a bit towards the harsh rather than the forgiving didn’t matter. You love and you are unable to do otherwise, period. It didn’t matter, not anymore. That she found me tough and able to take care of myself freed her from a mother’s worry. It was good she never knew the full extent of my need.

We’d had those last decades to play at living, to enjoy a movie in the theater, to attending the grandchildren’s school events, to shopping for hours at Walmart, for seeing the trees in autumn, for simply sitting together in silence as the geese flew overhead.

My steps are slowing. My stubborn nature, not giving in to pain, is the inheritance she gave me. If I could, I’d tell her, “Thank you, Ma.”

This Mattapoisett Life

By Marilou Newell

This 84^thannual Rochester Memorial Day Boat Race on Monday was nothing like the 83^rdlast year. No torrents of rain smashing steadily onto the hundreds of spectators and swamping the 100 participants in their canoes in a soup of rain and river water. This year, only cloudy skies hung above our heads – still hundreds of spectators, but unlike last year’s race, this year saw another dwindling in racers, down from 50 teams last year to 43 this year.

“It’s the lowest it’s been in a while,” said Dave Watling, boat race committee member. And why is that? “It’s a lot of work for a once-a-year event,” Watling supposes. And the younger generation is more involved in other sports, he added.

Dan Ferreira of Rochester, 51, thinks the weather last year had something to do with this year’s turnout.

“Last year turned a lot of people off,” said Ferreria. “Last year was the coldest I’d ever seen it.” And since he’s done the Memorial Day Race at least 30 times, he said, he should know.

“I’ve been racing since I was eight years old,” Ferreira said. He’s never come in first, “But I always shoot for the Top 10.”

Ferreira and his teammate Ben Ferreira, also of Rochester, came in ninth place in the Open Division at 2:12:45, reaching that goal once again.

Forty-three teams started the race, and 39 of them finished it.

This year’s Open Division champions were Dan Lawrence, Rochester, and William Watling III as they did last year, this year in at 1:50:03, a mere two minutes later than last year. But that matters not, since the duo still reigns as the team to set the race record time of 1:46:59 in 2013.

Second place in the Open Division was Jay Lawrence, Middleboro, and Andy Weigel, Rochester, in at 1:53:31. Third place went to Jake Goyette, Rochester, and Ian MacGregor, also from Rochester, with a time of 1:54:09.

For Co-Ed Division, first place trophy went to Samantha Hathaway, Acushnet, and Ethan Hathaway, Rochester, at 2:04:55. Second place was Michelle Kirby, Rochester, and Andy Hammerman, Chugchilan Ecuador, coming in at 2:06:04. Third place division winners were Kelsey Collasius, Fall River, and Don Collasius, Rochester, with 2:08:41.

In the Parent/Child Division, first place winners were Kendell Hedges, Marion, and C.J. Hedges IV, also of Marion, finishing at 2:10:26. In second place, Ellsea Roy, Rochester, and Jonathan Roy finished at 2:15:14. Third place winners were Josephine Eleniefsky and Gary Eleniefsky, both of Rochester, finishing at 2:20:16.

And in the Women’s Division, finishing in first was Caitlin Stopka, Rochester, and Emma Knox, Mattapoisett, at 2:26:17. In second, Kylie and Christina Beam from Buffalo, New York, finished at 2:35:49. Kristen Roy and Heidi Dubreuil, both from Rochester, took third place in the division at 2:51:15.

There was only one team competing in the Boys’ Junior Division – Tucker Roy, Rochester, and Cliff Hedges V, Marion, finished at 2:42:37.

And of course, earning the title of “Old Man of the River,” AKA oldest race participant, was David Gagne, 62, of Plainville who competed in the Parent/Child Division with Blake Gagne of Rochester, finishing at 3:28:30.

By Jean Perry