US Engineering Students Win Big At Sea Perch Competition

GA US engineering students with the help of physics teacher Diane Goldstein and GA's Mike Kelly, took 2nd place at The Greater Philadelphia Sea Perch Challenge at Temple University from a field of 25 teams in the "Vehicle Performance" Category, which is a competition that includes and obstacle course and a "crane mission - electromagnet - challenge". This regional win qualified GA for the national competition.

Diane Goldstein, US teacher of physics and engineering notes "I first entered GA as part of my first robotics minimester 3 years ago. We entered last year as part of the Engineering (H) class, and now this year as part of a mini-mester and engineering class. This is a relatively inexpensive competition that looks seemingly simple, but is actually very sophisticated. This year's Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) had to maneuver an long underwater obstacle course as well as use an electromagnet to pick up metal debris and place in a basket. We built our own working electromagnet from some YouTube instructions, and I had the obstacle course built by students in the first minimester.  The competition was the last major project introduced in the Engineering class, and this build introduced the kids to soldering and electrical components, as well as learning how to waterproof motors underwater. Finally, each group had to keep an Engineer's Notebook as well as put together a PowerPoint or Poster presentation.

The craft that we entered posted the best times in the obstacle course in the GA pool. We then retrofitted that craft with the electromagnet and practiced that portion in the pool as well.

All of the "missions" are put together to reflect the needs of the Navy - one of the major sponsors of the competition. Each year the second challenge changes significantly to keep it fresh.

So, of our class of 16 students, Tyler Andra and Tyler Hook represented us on the pool deck. Tyler Andra was the driver and Tyler Hook was the tether man. In some way, all of the class definitely contributed to the final project.

I was thrilled to see the team win the prestigious second place trophy for Vehicle Performance. In truth, we do tons of hand-on work and enter several competitions throughout the year in this class, and it is really fun to simply win sometimes! So many times, after a competition, I am thinking how we can do it better next year, and trying to figure out what went wrong - so a good result just feels great!"