From a robotic hand to innovative smart devices, this year’s technology showcase featured intelligence at every turn.

The second annual St. Stephen’s Demo Day offered a glimpse into the creativity, technical skill and ingenuity of senior Spartan robotics, engineering and computer science students — and the possibilities ahead as they transition from The Hill to their next chapter.

Inspired by a passion for the environment, Luke Mabley ’26 developed an Automatic Seed Planting Device aimed at making planting more efficient and accessible for farmers and gardeners — especially those on smaller farms or in developing nations without access to large, costly tractors.

The biggest lesson Mabley learned through the process was embracing failure and imperfection and continuing forward, even with an uncertain outcome.

“Mr. Lanier said, ‘What you need to do first is make it exist, and then once you’re there, you can make it good,’” Mabley said. “She’s not the cleanest [robot] that’s ever existed, but it works — it’s a working product and that’s something I’m very proud of.”

To create the prototype, Mabley used springs attached to a pizza cutter to carve planting lanes into the soil. A computer-controlled and 3-D printed rotating seed hopper releases seeds through a tube at timed intervals while the model drives forward autonomously with controller support. A trailing mechanism then moves dirt back over the seed to complete the planting process. The project also required computer-aided design (CAD) and extensive coding, which Mabley said would have been difficult to learn in a single course without assistance from artificial intelligence.

Other inventions included a space balloon, a robotic pooper scooper, a smart mirror, a life-sized RD-D2 and a robotic hand controlled by brain waves were among the 13 student inventions on display — all developed this school year during a 10-month research and develop process in the Project Idea Realization Lab (PIRL). Students, parents, faculty and staff moved from table to table in a science fair-style exhibition, exploring futuristic projects that rival concepts currently entering the consumer marketplace.

Electronics and robotics instructor and PIRL Director Troy Lanier partnered with computer science instructor Canon Ellis to host the open house, which featured senior capstone projects from students in two courses: Projects in Science and Technology and Projects in Computer Science. Highly regarded by students for their mentorship and dedication, Lanier and Ellis work tirelessly throughout the year to cultivate creativity, problem-solving and personal growth as students develop and refine their ideas.

“You look around this room and it’s hard not to be blown away by what these students built,” Lanier said. “Yes, the projects are impressive, but the real success is everything they learned in the process — perseverance, creativity, collaboration and how to turn an idea into something real.”

Lanier says the projects rival undergraduate level capstone projects in engineering and computer science. “Alumni, parents, and demo day guests who study or work in technical fields repeatedly validate how robust these projects are from a technical perspective. And the class is not just about physically making a project, it includes planning, documentation, design, fabrication, public speaking, and the process of getting from an idea to a functioning prototype. The course in and of itself is innovative and serves as an example of us being intentional about our pedagogy at St. Stephen’s.”

Avery Robinette ’26 elevated her coding game and leaned into her longtime passion for Formula One racing. She developed a model race car powered by machine learning, with the goal of making the sport safer. 

“The coding was complicated, but I had fun working through errors and learning from it,” said Robinette.

Using a convolutional neural network, the self-driving car learns to navigate tracks using environmental data — much like a human driver behind the wheel. Robinette, will take these new found skills with her to the University of California, San Diego, in the fall, where she plans to major in physics and minor in engineering.

Students enter the Projects in Science and Technology course in the fall and build upon the foundation established through St. Stephen’s art, science, technology, engineering and math curriculum. During the first weeks of class, students focus on brainstorming ideas and refining concepts with guidance from Lanier and Ellis, who help shape projects based on feasibility, available materials and time constraints.

Learn more about St. Stephen’s Project Idea Realization Lab (PIRL).