AGT Sponsorship Helps Local Schools Compete in National Underwater Robotics Competition
Advanced Green Technologies sponsorship helps FAU High School and FAU’s A.D. Henderson University School’s Underwater Robotics Teams compete in the national SeaPerch competition at Georgia Tech Insitute of Technology
Advanced Green Technologies (AGT) recently sponsored FAU High School and FAU’s A.D. Henderson University School’s Underwater Robotics Teams to participate in the national SeaPerch competition at Georgia Tech Institute of Technology on May 20. The SeaPerch program provides students with the opportunity to build a remote underwater vehicle (ROV) while learning about robotics, engineering, science, and mathematics. Students build basic skills in ship and submarine design while they become familiar with possible paths in naval architecture and ocean engineering.
The Sea Owls Underwater Robotics Team, consisting of a total of 23 middle school students from A.D. Henderson University School and high school students from FAU High School, traveled to compete at this year’s event, which featured 188 teams from all over the nation and the world, including Hawaii and New Zealand. Support from AGT and several other local sponsors helped cover much of the cost for the students and their parents to travel to the competition, allowing them to avoid incurring significant out of pocket expenses.
2017 SeaPerch Results
The high school team, Team Sea Owls STRIX, won first place for the Open Class engineering presentation and tied for 9th overall with the middle school Team ADH20, who also competed in the Open Class. Team ADH20 also developed a custom Arduino-based controller to mimic a gamepad that students were more accustomed to using and provided improved fine motor control of their robot.
Team SCUBA-Doo, another one of FAU’s middle school teams, placed second in the Puzzle Challenge with a perfect score in 4 minutes 3 seconds. This team placed 10th overall out of the 72 middle school teams competing at the national championship. Bio-Inspired by Squid, another FAU high school team, found further inspiration from the Harvard Robotics Lab and incorporated the use of their custom soft robotics into their gripper for the Puzzle Challenge.
Congratulations to all of FAU’s teams on their outstanding performance. We can’t wait to see what you come up with next year.
To find out more about the SeaPerch program or to inquire about becoming a sponsor, contact District STEM Coordinator Allan Phipps at 561-297-2857 / 954-817-0110 or via email at aphipps@fau.edu.