The Triangle

Issue date: 5/16/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Karl Kuchs Students from 40 local schools competed in the Greater Philadelphia Sea Perch Challenge May 10. Students worked with Navy mentors to build underwater robots.

Even though the season is over for Drexel's swimming and diving team, the Daskalakis Athletic Center pool was full of shouts and cheers May 10 as over 600 middle and high school students from about 40 local schools competed in the Greater Philadelphia Sea Perch Challenge.

The competition, which was funded by the U.S. Navy, was developed to build interest in engineering in pre-college students. Students worked with Navy-trained mentors to build an underwater robot - complete with propulsion and control systems - at their respective schools before coming to Drexel for the regional competition.

At the competition, robots underwent a maneuvering test and a search-and-recovery test. To test maneuvering, robots raced through a series of underwater hoops. Before the search-and-recovery test, the pool was covered so that students had to use cameras on their robot to search out and recover underwater objects.

According to Michael McDonald, a member of the Sea Perch team from Strawberry Mansion High School, a lot of time went into the design and construction of his team's underwater robot.

"We've been working hard - two to three days a week for 30 to 40 minutes," McDonald said. "We believe we're going to come in first place."

After the first round of competition, the team from Dundalk High School in Baltimore, Md., had to perform some last-minute work on their design. Chase Sutherland, a high school junior, was one of five engineers on that team.

"We tested out our engine before the competition and saw that it was unstable," Sutherland said. "We're hoping to fix it right now so that we can do better in the second round."

Judges for the competition were supplied by the Philadelphia School District, the College of Engineering and the Navy.

The winners of the competition were Ridley Middle School and Swenson Arts and Technology High School, according to Joanne Ferroni, the director of outreach for the College of Engineering.

The Sea Perch program was originally developed at MIT, whose goal was to host trainings for K-12 teachers, according to Ferroni. Drexel hosted the first Sea Perch event in 2006.

The competition expanded to other sites for the first time this year. An event was held at George Mason University, according to Ferroni.

The teams are graded on four weighted categories, which include vehicle performance, innovative design presentation, the engineering design notebook, and spirit and sportsmanship.

Approximately 35 volunteers from Drexel helped during the event.

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