Tech Titans NC Helps Excavate Archaeologists From Mountains of Paperwork

How eight middle schoolers and their coach turned a student challenge into a real-world rescue for researchers

When many people imagine the difficulties of archaeology, something from an Indiana Jones film might come to mind: dangerous terrain, harsh weather, navigating ancient ruins and a whole lot of digging. But that isn’t the reality for many archaeologists in the field. This year for its annual competition, the FIRST LEGO® League challenged students to solve a problem related to archaeology. Tech Titans NC, a team of eight innovative middle schoolers, began by reaching out to archaeologists affiliated with the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC). To their surprise, the team discovered one of the largest obstacles in archaeology had nothing to do with terrain. 

“It’s a lot of copy and pasting,” said Dr. Jim Gibb, principal investigator of the Environmental Archaeology Lab at SERC.  

Archaeologists like Gibb jot down notes in the field and then spend at least an hour completing a digital form for each site they visit when they return to the lab. This form is then sent to the state register, who must reenter all the information Gibb filled out—and sometimes send the researchers back into the field if data is missing. Beyond being a time suck, the clunky process can lead to transcription errors.  

In North Carolina alone—the team’s home state—researchers have more than 64,000 archaeologist sites, each requiring its own form.  

Simply put, archaeologists are wasting hundreds of hours on paperwork.  

An Archaeologist’s BFF (Best Field Friend)  

Enter: ArchePal.  

“’Arche’ stands for archaeologist and then Pal stands for like friend,” said Aarush Mene, one of the Tech Titans NC students.  

Tech Titans NC’s creation is a smartphone app for fieldwork and a website for lab work. The app can be used anywhere, including the remote, offline places researchers often find themselves working in. Archaeologists can use text-to-speech functions, AI image analysis of pictures and collaborative features. They can even use the app to convert artifact photos into 3D-printable models, helping create replicas. 

“Our app is kind of like an all-in-one,” fellow student Shreyan Sharma said.  

Tech Titans NC consisted of the eight middle schoolers, their coach Atul Mene and youth mentor Aatmaja Mene. In addition to Aarush Mene and Shreyan Sharma, the students were: Atharv Pardeshi, Arjun Katta, Anish Rudrabhatla, Prakhar Purohit, Sachin Senthil Kumar and Yogi Desai.  

Designing the app took around three months and more than 100,000 lines of code. Some members of the team had more computer science experience than others, but through hard work and collaboration, the team made it work. Those with more experience taught their peers, and everyone was eager to learn.  

It wasn’t an easy process. But even when the team found themselves stuck, they never gave up. 

“You need to show a positive attitude in order to overcome that challenge,” said Yogi Desai, another member of Tech Titans NC. 

“We would tell ourselves it’s fine,” added team member Arjun Katta. “Even if you don’t get it this time, it's not the end of the world.” 

Eureka!

Between classes and other after school curriculars, the determined middle schoolers dedicated themselves to ArchePal. They met weekly and divided the project into parts so everyone could play a role in making it.  

Three months later, it was ready. Well, almost. The first two versions were rejected by the Apple app store, known for its strict policy for new apps. But Tech Titans NC didn’t let setbacks bring them down.  

“Hard work overcomes all challenges,” said student Sachin Senthil Kumar.  

Several weeks later, the app store accepted their third version of the app. The team gathered to watch it go live, the excitement in the room palpable.  

“When it got published onto the App Store, we were jumping around and really happy,” Aarush Mene said. Companies and teams of skilled coders designed most of the apps on their screens. Seeing their app alongside the others felt like a huge accomplishment.  

“It was an excellent feeling,” said Atul Mene, Master Inventor with IBM and coach of the Tech Titans NC.  

“I liked seeing their energy,” Gibb said. “They're really into it. I find it uplifting.” 

But the work didn’t end there. The team is still innovating, incorporating feedback and suggestions from archaeologists to improve their app. They believe a product is never truly done and can always be made better.  

“There’s always room for improvement,” said student Prakhar Purohit. 

Looking Forward 

Researchers may still face rough terrain and other physical challenges, but they don’t need to spend hundreds of hours on paperwork any longer. Less paperwork means more time for discovery and analysis. With the archaeologists’ new pal by their side, anything is possible.  

“One of the most exciting moments was when [archaeologist Jim Gibb] said that he would like to use our app in one of his Maryland projects,” said student Anish Rudrabhatla.  

“An application like this potentially could make producing technical reports a lot faster, because a lot of the data will already be processed by the time you make it back to the lab,” Gibb said.  

In the future, Tech Titans NC hope to continue innovating and learning together. At the same time, they will keep working on ArchePal based on feedback from archaeologists.  

“The larger goal is ultimately archaeologists should use it and benefit from it,” Atul Mene said.