In the two years that engineering classes have been made available at Boothbay Region High School, students from Emily Higgins' class have been invited to participate at the National SeaPerch Challenge.

This year seniors Alex Owen and Dan Murray are headed to Indianapolis for the competition on May 18. Since scoring the most points in the regional challenge at the Bath YMCA in April, the two student engineers will be facing off with teams from all over the nation where student-designed robots will compete head to head in underwater challenges. 

“I'm looking for a solid performance at the competition and will try to do as well as possible in the presentation,” Owen said.

As part of the competition, Owen and Murray must present a poster of their robot design and their scientific findings to a panel of judges.

The pool competitions consist of an obstacle course of fixed hoops to be navigated through, while the deep water challenge times how long it take robots to transfer rings from a stand to underwater receptacles.

Murray said no big adjustments were necessary on their robot. Besides replacing the motors, they've shortened the hook which should make scooping up the rings much easier. When asked what flaws their robot has, Murray said “It's mostly just kind of slow, but it maneuvers well.”

Higgins, who is the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) instructor at BRHS said unlike many of the students who designed robots, Owen and Murray took the time to calculate weight, mass and buoyancy which proved to be much more precise than typical trial and error.

During the trip Owen and Murray will be accompanied by Shawn Carlson, the district technology coordinator at BRHS. The school was able to fund the trip from an education grant and a donation from the American Association of Engineers.

The competition and is sponsored by the Office of Naval Research and is taking place at the Indiana University and Purdue University campuses. 

Click here to see how the boys did at the competition.