By Nicole Thomas
SSD’s three teams earned first, second and third place honors in the 2015 SeaPerch South Regional Competition held on Saturday at the Frank Sanderson Center on the campus of Mississippi State University.
SHS students Gavin Jones and Justin Rickels combined to form Team Lusitania. They were awarded first place in the overall competition and in the high school category. SHS students Tyler Adair, Bryton Heiselt, and Reggie Manney represented Team Titanic earning second place in the overall competition. AMS students Shae Heiselt and Rachel Adair formed Team Orca and they finished first in middle school category and third in the overall competition.
SeaPerch is an innovative underwater robotics program that trains teachers to implement the hands-on aspect of engineering and tool development in order to create a research experience for their students.
As part of the competition, students were required to build a SeaPerch ROV using basical skills in ship and submarine design to perform multiple independent tasks that tested their ability to operate their SeaPerches with finesse.
The course consisted of three stations in which the vehicles will have to maneuver and actuate equipment on the pool floor.
As the South’s top three teams and scorers, all of SSD’s students and teams advance to the 2015 National SeaPerch Challenge which will be held on May 29 – 30 at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in Dartmouth, Massachusetts where over 100 teams from across the country will compete in a juried poster competition and in-pool technical events with their SeaPerch ROV’s.
SeaPerch South is hosted by Mississippi State University’s Bagley College of Engineering.