Underwater experience

The Margaret M. Clark Aquatic Center housed more than 1o0 people during the U.S. Navy SeaPerch Challenge last Friday as part of UTRGV’s HESTEC Week.

The event consisted of 38 teams from middle and high schools across the Rio Grande Valley participating in three different activities.

Teams had to complete an obstacle course challenge in which they maneuvered their remotely operated vehicles (ROV) underwater through a series of rings. The second portion of the competition was a challenge course, which required teams to use their robots to pick items and place them in certain locations. Points were awarded based on the time teams would take to complete each portion.

In the third and final portion of the competition, teams were interviewed by college professors and U.S. Navy officers about their ROVs.

Milton Hernandez, UTRGV program coordinator for the Division of Governmental and Community Relations, said the purpose of this event is to get a winner who will then compete in the International SeaPerch Challenge, where teams from different U.S. states and countries participate.

He said contenders who participate in the competition are able to learn about underwater robotics as well as teamwork skills.

“They also learn more engineering,” Hernandez said. “When they are in the interview portion, they ask [them] a bunch of different types of problems and things you have to learn in school in general.”

Conrado Guajardo, a member of the Sea Lions team from Sen. Eddie A. Lucio Jr. Middle School in Brownsville, said most of the hands-on work was done by the team.

“They helped us out mostly with the soldering because that was the part we messed up most on,” Guajardo said. “The pipe-cutting … was kind of hard the first time. We were scared that we were going to cut off our fingers or something.”

He said the process to build their ROV was easy overall.

U.S. Navy Education Services Specialist Juan Pablo Rodriguez said the U.S. Navy SeaPerch Challenge is an opportunity to motivate students in STEM careers.

“Whenever you motivate students in STEM careers, give them a project to work on and then create a competition for the outcome of their project,” Rodriguez said. “It causes them to get excited about it. Whenever they see these many family members here … it just gets them excited and once you put together excitement to the ability to learn, it is a great outcome for students.”

Asked why the U.S. Navy sponsors the event, he replied, “We don’t forget that we are a customer of STEM. We need engineers, we need physicians, we need mathematicians, we employ them all. So, because of our understanding that we need students to graduate in STEM careers, is that we’re now investing, as low as the eighth grade level, in helping students become motivated, be aware of the STEM careers, be motivated through them, build the project, get excited about it, because at the end we know that we are one of those potential customers.”

Los Fresnos High School placed first in the challenge; Lopez High School Team 1 from Brownsville, second; and Harlingen High School, third.

Candice Cantu, coach of the Mighty Sea Warriors team of Jo Nelson Middle School in Santa Rosa, said the important aspect of the competition is not winning, but what the students learn through it.

“I don’t see winning as a big part of it,” Cantu said. “I think that the SeaPerch in itself is a great thing for students because a lot of my students that are competing, they are not in athletics, they’re not in band. This is their only afterschool thing and it’s making them actually do something that makes them think more. … That’s how we need to teach our kids.”