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NEWS | April 26, 2017

Students Build LEGO Robots for Carderock Competition

By Daniel Daglis, NSWC Carderock Division Public Affairs

In what has become an annual competition hosted at Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division, students from local schools spent the day April 21 at the command in West Bethesda, Maryland, demonstrating teamwork in an effort to design and program fully-functioning autonomous LEGO robots.

This is the fourth time Carderock has hosted the LEGO Robotics Competition, "Operation Carderock," with several of Carderock's engineers volunteering to help the elementary and middle school students put the finishing touches on their robots that had been weeks in the making. Once the robots were completed, teams from the four participating schools - Wood Middle School in Bethesda, Maryland; Pyle Middle School in Rockville, Maryland; Burning Tree Elementary School in Bethesda, Maryland; and, Forest Edge Elementary School in Reston, Virginia - were assessed on their demonstration of teamwork, their ability to communicate their design decisions to the judges and the quality of their team-produced research project presentation.

To kick off the day-long event, Carderock's Technical Director Dr. Tim Arcano addressed the students during the opening ceremony, emphasizing both the importance of the competition as a fun learning activity and its importance to Carderock's future workforce by sparking students' interest in engineering careers through the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) initiative.

"In a few more years, we're going to need people like you doing what we do at Carderock as scientists and engineers. Someday you might decide to work at Carderock and lend your talents and expertise to helping improve the U.S. Navy's fleet," Arcano said.

Arcano added that Carderock's employee volunteers put their passion into it because not only is it the right thing to do to train students on elements of engineering and design, but also because it's something they love doing.

"We love getting students, especially at such a young age, interested in STEM so one day they can design the ships and submarines that our nation relies on," Arcano said.

Once students were finished with their breakout sessions, they toured some of Carderock's unique facilities including the David Taylor Model Basin and the Maneuvering and Seakeeping Basin.

In the afternoon, students reconvened in the Melville-Taylor Auditorium, where Carderock Chief Technology Officer Jack Templeton congratulated the students for their hard work and recognized all of Carderock's volunteers who dedicated their time to helping the students complete their robots. Engineers Jonathan Hopkins and Michael Britt-Crane acknowledged each team in attendance for their strengths in the final evaluations.

Wood Middle Team No. 3 came in first place, followed by Wood Middle Team No. 4 and Burning Tree Elementary Team No. 1 rounding out the top three. For their accomplishments, each team that placed received a 3-D printed trophy made in Carderock's Manufacturing, Knowledge and Education (MAKE) Lab.

Tracy Carole, Grant Honecker and Nathan Hagan organized the competition and helped mentor students through weekly afterschool sessions along with Arthur Elefante, Van Lien, Li Jiang, Hua Shan and Woody Pfitsch.