Meet S.A.M. — he’s the surgical robot at West Chester Hospital recently named by a seventh-grade science class at Lakota Plains Jr. School.

The Lakota Local School District and West Chester Hospital partnered in October for the naming of the facility’s da Vinci Si Surgical System produced by Intuitive Surgical, Inc.

The contest kicked off with 58 science classes submitting original and creative names for the robot — which has been used at the hospital since May 2011. Hospital and business leaders narrowed the list to a Top 10, before a public vote determined two finalists.

About 45 students from the top two classes — at Plains Jr. and Hopewell Jr. — got to “test drive” the surgical robot on Nov. 20 and tour the hospital’s lab and pharmacy departments before officials announced the “Name the Robot” contest winner.

The winning name of S.A.M. “Surgical Assisting Mechanism” was created by the class of teacher Erin Middendorf at Lakota Plains. The runner-up class, taught by Heidi Adams, chose the name STITCH “Surgical Tiny Incision Tremor Controlled Hand.”

Tom Daskalakis, vice president and chief operating officer, announced the winner along with Lakota Superintendent Karen Mantia. Each class received an Apple iPad 2 for their classroom.

“This is technology you don’t see in a lot of other hospitals,” Mantia said. “(The students’) creativity is going to come right to the hospital, right to the community.”

Jennifer Garcia, hospital spokeswoman, said the students played with “demo toys” used to train physicians for procedures using the robot, such as practicing stitching on synthetic skin.

The machine is a more than $1 million investment used daily on more than a dozen surgeries, including a “virtually scar-less” removal of the gallbladder through the belly button, and a hysterectomy with three to five dime-sized incisions.

“It’s microscopic … the accuracy that the human eye can’t see,” Garcia said.

Bella Roberts, a seventh-grader at Lakota Plains, said she was surprised with the ease in control and movement of the surgical robot. Roberts, a member of the winning class, said the hospital featured more innovative technology than she would have thought.

“It was really easy to work with and smooth,” Roberts said.

Lakota schools this year have introduced updated STEAM₂ curriculum — in areas of science, technology, engineering, applied arts, mathematics and medical fields — to junior high students. Current seventh grade students in a Design and Modeling course are being prepared for the eighth grade course titled Automation and Robotics.