Five students from Houston Can Academy’s Hobby campus recently participated and took third place in a regional robotics competition which included 35 teams from the Greater Houston area. The SeaPerch Underwater Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) workshop they began two months ago, led them to compete in the south and southeast region division robotics competition at Alief Hastings High School in Houston. The Houston Can Academy Hobby campus was one of 30 teams from their division which spans from Arizona to Pensacola, FL to qualify and advance to the sixth annual National SeaPerch Challenge to be held May 20-21, 2016 at Louisiana State University.

 

SeaPerch is an innovative underwater robotics program where students build ROV’s from kits containing low-cost parts and follows a curriculum that teaches basic engineering and science concepts around a marine engineering theme. The students learn engineering concepts, problem solving, teamwork and technical applications while building an underwater ROV. Once the robot is constructed, it is tested and programmed to complete missions in a certain amount of time in order to advance in competition. The Houston Can Academy’s ROV completed the underwater course in 95 seconds which was only 59 seconds shy of the world record. Time allotted to complete the course is fifteen minutes. 

The Houston Can Academy team will be competing at the National SeaPerch Challenge against approximately 200 top robotic teams from the U.S. as well as teams from Australia, Russia, Brazil and other countries.