Photo By Chief Petty Officer Travis Simmons | NEW YORK (April 23, 2016) Cmdr. Alex Hampton, an F/A 18 Hornet strike fighter pilot...... read more read more
NEW YORK (April 23, 2016) Students, educators, parents and representatives from seven U.S. Navy commands gathered at the Olympic-size pool at Flushing Meadows Corona Park Aquatic Center in Queens, April 23, for the 2016 New York City Regional SeaPerch Remotely-Operated Vehicle (ROV) Competition.
The two overall winners were Junior High School 278 Marine Park and Rachel Carson High School for Coastal Studies, both out of Brooklyn. They are both now eligible to attend the National SeaPerch Challenge, May 20-21, at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.
“The teaching and learning that goes into this, this is exactly what the chancellor wants to see more of in our New York City schools,” said Nancy Woods, director of Technology and Engineering with the New York City Department of Education. “We applaud you.”
During the ceremony, Woods announced a new five-week, free program designed to support Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) learning for current 2nd through 10th graders. She said STEM Summer in the City will involve science, circuitry, engineering, robotics and coding. Interested students can search schools.nyc.gov for more information on enrolling.
“While we don’t know what the jobs of the future are, we know that lots of the jobs are going to be around conceptual thinking and understanding, and hands-on engineering work,” said Woods.
This was the second year that JHS 278 Marine Park took part in the competition and the students mentioned their modifications from last year’s design and teamwork contributed to their success.
“During the obstacle course we got 2:41 and for the orbs we got 9:27; we cleared all the orbs,” said student Matthew Rosen. “I think we did a little better on the orbs than the obstacle course and we completely cleared it in 9:27, and got all of them in the bucket!”
The Marine Park team consisted of about 27 students divided among four teams. They traveled to James Madison High School for trial runs in their pool and to see who the fastest operators were before the regional competition.
Each participating school spent months working on their ROV based on guidelines and material provided. Battery-powered motors and PVC pipe are the main ingredients, but each team comes up with their own way to adjust the weight and their ROV’s buoyancy in the water.
According to seaperch.org, the SeaPerch curriculum includes discussion of potential careers in technical and engineering fields and the program is designed to be fun while also building teamwork and inspiring young minds.
Teams at the regional competition were graded on their Spirit and Outreach, Presentation, Rings course completion, Orbs obstacles and Best Design.
“I didn’t know what to expect coming into this event, but I was absolutely floored by the amount of ingenuity, innovation, the amount of effort and hard work these kids put into these robots,” said guest speaker Cmdr. Alex Hampton, an F/A-18 Hornet strike fighter pilot assigned to U.S. Northern Command and native of Chicago, Illinous.
“We’re here to stress the importance of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, and provide a practical application of those skill sets that you can use in so many other types of events that you’re going to encounter in your life,” said Hampton. “The U.S. Navy values those skillsets, values the innovative thinking that goes with creating something like this.”
Hampton commended the students’ hard work and thanked the parents for their participation.
Hampton also highlighted that many of the schools he talked to had to go back to the drawing board and re-assess their ROV after initial setbacks. He praised their resiliency and said that mentality is key in many aspects of life.
“During our obstacle course, we had a couple of malfunctions; one of our propellers came off and two of our motors died, but we had replacement motors, so we were able to quickly fix it and get it back in the pool,” said Nicholas Weier, a senior from Middletown High School. “We were able to make a little bit of a comeback.”
Weier said it was amazing to see what some of the teams had done with their creative designs and that it opened up new ideas for next year’s teams.
| Date Taken: | 04.23.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 04.28.2016 16:39 |
| Story ID: | 196807 |
| Location: | NEW YORK, NY, US |
| Hometown: | CHICAGO, IL, US |
| Web Views: | 321 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
This work, Two Brooklyn Schools Win Big at NYC Regional SeaPerch ROV Competition, by CPO Travis Simmons, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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