MAYPORT Florida –
The
Southeast Regional Maintenance Center (SERMC) sent three of its personnel to
the 10th Annual Greater Philadelphia SeaPerch Challenge at Drexel University
April 24-25 on an exploratory mission.
The
mission was to learn how to establish a viable SeaPerch program in the
Jacksonville area.
SERMC
Commanding Officer, Capt. Dave Gombas, sent Crystal Taylor, Chuck Hayes and Lt.
Margaret Dori north to observe middle and high school students competing in
this challenge. SeaPerch is a program
that engages students in hands-on robotics activities designed to trigger an
interest in science, technology engineering and math (STEM).
The
competition is an innovative underwater robotics program that teaches students
to design and build a remotely operated vehicle (ROV). According to the SeaPerch website (www.seaperch.org), students will learn engineering
concepts, problem solving, teamwork, and technical applications. Building a SeaPerch ROV teaches basic skills
in ship and submarine design and encourages students to explore naval
architecture, and marine and ocean engineering principles. It also teaches
basic science and engineering concepts, tool safety and technical procedures.
“This
was especially fun for me because I’m from Chester, just outside of Philly,”
said Taylor. “My old high school had a
team competing, so to see my alma mater doing well in this kind of event was a
lot of fun.”
“What’s
amazing is the amount of collaboration between teams, and the different
perspectives and designs each team brings to the competition,” Gombas
said.
Ultimately,
the goal is to expose students to all the exciting careers that are possible in
naval architecture and naval, ocean, and marine engineering.
“The
most rewarding aspect of the trip for me was the enthusiasm shown by the
participants and the organizers of the event,” Hayes said. “I have rarely seen a program that was better
organized for young adults in the middle and high school age ranges that
developed such excitement that wasn't sports related.”
“To
see these students with their mentors and teachers in a friendly competition is
just inspiring,” Gombas said. “The students
build ROVs to compete in underwater obstacle courses, sometimes picking up
objects from the bottom of the pool. No
two ROVs are alike, and the competition changes from year to year too.”
He
said one year students would be poolside operating their ROVs; the next year,
they guided their ROVs by remote camera view.
Dori said this year’s ROVs had to find and mark underwater “mines” and
deploy a small balloon to mark their location.
Other obstacle course challenges were acoustic in nature.
Gombas
first participated in the SeaPerch program in 2011 while in command of Naval
Surface Warfare Center, Naval Ship Systems Engineering Station in Philadelphia
where he became captivated by the nature of the competition and the intrinsic benefits.
The
program has grown from a one-day event to two days in areas like Philadelphia
because of the popularity and spread of the SeaPerch program. Gombas wants Jacksonville to be one of those
SeaPerch hubs too, and he wants the Navy - SERMC in particular - to lead the
charge in establishing and running the program with some local partners. The Office of Naval Research has sponsored
the program in order to promote early education in engineering and science.
The
SeaPerch website indicates “the U.S. has fallen from third to 17th in the world
in the number of college graduates in engineering programs. In the U.S., only five percent of science
degrees are awarded in engineering, as compared with 50 percent in China. It is estimated that 400,000 engineers will be
needed in the near future. If it is not addressed, the expected shortage of
skilled workers could decrease the nation's global competitiveness and result
in a lack of expertise in mission-critical areas.”
The next step for the
SERMC team will be to travel to Dartmouth, Mass.at the end of May for the
National SeaPerch Challenge.
“Our goal there will be
to observe and learn the different ways of setting up the various stations and
underwater ROV challenge runs in order to translate those into our own
competitions here,” said Hayes. “In my
opinion, whenever there is a vision that is going to make the future better,
that is a vision that I can support and hopefully advance in some small
way. So, is the goal of developing a
local program important? Not only is it important, it is imperative.”