NJROTC Students Excel at STEM
R. L. Turner NJROTC students participated in the annual Sea-Perch STEM competition. RLT’s team placed in the top 10 against 90 other Dallas area school programs. Sea-Perch is an innovative underwater robotics program. The program equips teachers and students with the resources they need to build an underwater Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV). The program provides students with hands on learning about robotics, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Throughout the project, students  learn engineering concepts, problem solving, teamwork, and technical applications.  While presenting their Engineering notebooks, participants receive interviews by a panel of judges regarding careers, statistics and national needs.
The Cadets all participated in building, testing and overcoming mistakes and failures before it was ready to drive. During the practical phase they take the ROV to the CFBISD Natatorium to practice on an obstacle course they also built. Once everyone had time piloting the ROV, they conducted a drivers try-out to identify the best pilots to lead their teams in the up-coming regional competition.
Last week they participated in the Dallas regional competition with over 90 schools taking part. Schools from as far as El Paso and Houston were in attendance. The competitions consisted of 3 phases. First, the Engineering Notebook (ENB) which cadets used to explain their design process to include: sketches, photos, graphs and explanations using engineering terminology. The ENB also has to have a professional appearance.Â
The Competition
The first part of the event is timed, where students are required to pilot the ROV through six hoops, breech the surface, and return in reverse order to the starting point.  In the Finesse course, participants had to make the ROV to pick up rings and cubes, placing them on hooks within the allotted time. Of the 90 Schools in attendance only the top 7 would advance to Atlanta for the National Competition. While RLT took 9th place overall, the team took first place in the Finesse course. This was the 3rd year RLT NJROTC has competed in Sea Perch advancing farther each year. The future looks bright and the Cadets are extremely excited and motivated to make it to Nationals next year.
