Photo Courtesy of The River Fund Maine

BETHEL — What’s a robot doing in Bethel, Maine? This story starts when a step-father and step-son are talking one day after the step-father gets home from work. The step-father tells his step-son he’s having a problem at work.

He’s a snowmaker working at Sunday River. It’s December, the middle of the busiest snow season, and he and his team believe there is a compromise in the intake pipe from Sunday River heading up to the pump house.

The step-son, Dylan Thayer Greenberg, is a Senior at Gould Academy, and is a member of the underwater robotics team. He comes up with a solution to his step-father’s dilemma. He suggests sending their robot up the pipe with a camera to inspect it and see if there is a problem. This way, they don’t have to wait until spring or call a diver.

And so Greenberg and a group from Gould take the Blue Robotics ROV and go to Sunday River, helping target blockages and ensuring the water intake pipes work to their fullest potential.

Because of Greenberg’s solution-oriented thinking, among many things, he was awarded The River Fund Maine Scholarship. The scholarship awards him up to $20,000 each year for four years toward the cost of college tuition and fees, room and board, books, and educational supplies. Greenberg will be attending Rochester Institute of Technology in it’s five-year Engineering Program.

“Dylan is incredibly curious and intellectually tenacious. He is interested in many subjects, and once he becomes engaged with a subject or an idea, he can exhibit incredible persistence about discovering and learning as much as possible about that subject,” says Maggie Davis, associate director of College Counseling at Gould Academy.

Greenberg’s focus with either be on cybersecurity or space exploration.