Minnow Vs. Shark: Robo-Battles, ONR & the Force of the Future


By Sierra Jones, Office of Naval Research Corporate Strategic Communications

Ahhh, summer. For most students, it’s a time to break from the rigors of math and science, spending days relaxing at the beach or pool. For others, however, it means building platforms, writing program code and tweaking various hardware components.

Team S.S. Minnow falls into the latter category. Meet Nick Serle, 15, and Abby Butka, 14, a homeschooled robotics team from Florida.

Nick Serle, 15, part of the Daytona Beach Homeschoolers team, launches his autonomous surface vehicle, the S.S. Minnow, during the 2015 AUVSI Foundation and Office of Naval Research-sponsored RoboBoat competition in Virginia Beach, Virginia. U.S. Navy photo by John F. Williams/Released

Nick Serle, 15, part of the Daytona Beach Homeschoolers team, launches his autonomous surface vehicle, the S.S. Minnow, during the 2015 AUVSI Foundation and Office of Naval Research-sponsored RoboBoat competition in Virginia Beach, Virginia. U.S. Navy photo by John F. Williams/Released

For the past three years, the pair has been competing against some of the finest technical universities in the world via the SeaPerch, RoboSub and RoboBoat robotic competitions -all co-sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (ONR).

“I’ve seen Nick and Abby rise through these contests and become fierce competitors,” said Kelly Cooper, a program officer in ONR’s Sea Warfare and Weapons Department. “It is success stories like theirs that motivate us to support these competitions.”

These programs align with one another and provide continuous educational opportunities for students from middle to graduate school.

“Competition opportunities like these are important because they build confidence, teach life skills and mature real-world problem-solving abilities,” said Chief of Naval Research Rear. Adm. Mat Winter. “These are key attributes we value for all personnel entering into our naval workforce and research community – which, in turn, will be the driving force behind our Navy and Marine Corps’ technological superiority.”

The two students started their journey in 2013 at the Daytona Beach Museum of Arts and Sciences, where they took a robotics science class and were introduced to SeaPerch – a student-built underwater remotely-operated vehicle.

After placing third overall in the SeaPerch regional competition, the team built an even faster model for nationals, where they finished third in the deep-water challenge.

Feeling inspired by their success, Nick and Abby wanted more.

“We had done well at SeaPerch and wanted a bigger challenge,” Abby said. “When we talked to the students in the Robotics Association at Embry Riddle University [their technical mentor], they suggested the RoboSub competition, which was similar to SeaPerch but fully autonomous.”

But were they ready for the big leagues? The short answer was yes, but there was some trepidation.

As Abby put it: “RoboSub, that’s a college competition! We’ll be like minnows swimming with sharks!”

The fear would soon fade. After gaining permission to be the first middle-school team ever allowed entrance to the competition, the pair set off to build their RoboSub prototype, designed to be close to the SeaPerch used in the national competition, but autonomous. During the competition, they were one of only three teams to circumnavigate the gate – a difficult task that required teams to pass their submarine through a three-pronged gate and circle the middle pole.

They finished the competition ranked 11 out of 33 teams.

In 2014, team S.S. Minnow took the lessons it learned and made its way back to the regional and national SeaPerch and international RoboSub competitions, where it placed first, third and 11th, respectively.

This year, the team decided to compete on top of the water instead of under and entered RoboBoat, an autonomous surface vehicle tournament.

“RoboBoat offered different areas of engineering that we wanted to try, such as GPS,” Nick said. “That made this competition very enticing.”

The pair placed fourth out of 16 teams, an impressive showing for their first time out, but they said they’ll be back next year with new ideas on how to improve their performance even more.

Sierra Jones is a contractor for ONR Corporate Strategic Communications.

About the Office of Naval Research
The Department of the Navy’s Office of Naval Research provides the science and technology necessary to maintain the Navy and Marine Corps’ technological advantage. Through its affiliates, ONR is a leader in science and technology with engagement in 50 states, 55 countries, 634 institutions of higher learning and nonprofit institutions, and more than 960 industry partners. ONR, through its commands, including headquarters, ONR Global and the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., employs more than 3,800 people, comprising uniformed, civilian and contract personnel.

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for military science and technology updates!

———-

Disclaimer: Re-published content may have been edited for length and clarity. The appearance of hyperlinks does not constitute endorsement by the Department of Defense. For other than authorized activities, such as, military exchanges and Morale, Welfare and Recreation sites, the Department of Defense does not exercise any editorial control over the information you may find at these locations. Such links are provided consistent with the stated purpose of this DoD website.



from Armed with Science http://ift.tt/1DSWTRz

By Sierra Jones, Office of Naval Research Corporate Strategic Communications

Ahhh, summer. For most students, it’s a time to break from the rigors of math and science, spending days relaxing at the beach or pool. For others, however, it means building platforms, writing program code and tweaking various hardware components.

Team S.S. Minnow falls into the latter category. Meet Nick Serle, 15, and Abby Butka, 14, a homeschooled robotics team from Florida.

Nick Serle, 15, part of the Daytona Beach Homeschoolers team, launches his autonomous surface vehicle, the S.S. Minnow, during the 2015 AUVSI Foundation and Office of Naval Research-sponsored RoboBoat competition in Virginia Beach, Virginia. U.S. Navy photo by John F. Williams/Released

Nick Serle, 15, part of the Daytona Beach Homeschoolers team, launches his autonomous surface vehicle, the S.S. Minnow, during the 2015 AUVSI Foundation and Office of Naval Research-sponsored RoboBoat competition in Virginia Beach, Virginia. U.S. Navy photo by John F. Williams/Released

For the past three years, the pair has been competing against some of the finest technical universities in the world via the SeaPerch, RoboSub and RoboBoat robotic competitions -all co-sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (ONR).

“I’ve seen Nick and Abby rise through these contests and become fierce competitors,” said Kelly Cooper, a program officer in ONR’s Sea Warfare and Weapons Department. “It is success stories like theirs that motivate us to support these competitions.”

These programs align with one another and provide continuous educational opportunities for students from middle to graduate school.

“Competition opportunities like these are important because they build confidence, teach life skills and mature real-world problem-solving abilities,” said Chief of Naval Research Rear. Adm. Mat Winter. “These are key attributes we value for all personnel entering into our naval workforce and research community – which, in turn, will be the driving force behind our Navy and Marine Corps’ technological superiority.”

The two students started their journey in 2013 at the Daytona Beach Museum of Arts and Sciences, where they took a robotics science class and were introduced to SeaPerch – a student-built underwater remotely-operated vehicle.

After placing third overall in the SeaPerch regional competition, the team built an even faster model for nationals, where they finished third in the deep-water challenge.

Feeling inspired by their success, Nick and Abby wanted more.

“We had done well at SeaPerch and wanted a bigger challenge,” Abby said. “When we talked to the students in the Robotics Association at Embry Riddle University [their technical mentor], they suggested the RoboSub competition, which was similar to SeaPerch but fully autonomous.”

But were they ready for the big leagues? The short answer was yes, but there was some trepidation.

As Abby put it: “RoboSub, that’s a college competition! We’ll be like minnows swimming with sharks!”

The fear would soon fade. After gaining permission to be the first middle-school team ever allowed entrance to the competition, the pair set off to build their RoboSub prototype, designed to be close to the SeaPerch used in the national competition, but autonomous. During the competition, they were one of only three teams to circumnavigate the gate – a difficult task that required teams to pass their submarine through a three-pronged gate and circle the middle pole.

They finished the competition ranked 11 out of 33 teams.

In 2014, team S.S. Minnow took the lessons it learned and made its way back to the regional and national SeaPerch and international RoboSub competitions, where it placed first, third and 11th, respectively.

This year, the team decided to compete on top of the water instead of under and entered RoboBoat, an autonomous surface vehicle tournament.

“RoboBoat offered different areas of engineering that we wanted to try, such as GPS,” Nick said. “That made this competition very enticing.”

The pair placed fourth out of 16 teams, an impressive showing for their first time out, but they said they’ll be back next year with new ideas on how to improve their performance even more.

Sierra Jones is a contractor for ONR Corporate Strategic Communications.

About the Office of Naval Research
The Department of the Navy’s Office of Naval Research provides the science and technology necessary to maintain the Navy and Marine Corps’ technological advantage. Through its affiliates, ONR is a leader in science and technology with engagement in 50 states, 55 countries, 634 institutions of higher learning and nonprofit institutions, and more than 960 industry partners. ONR, through its commands, including headquarters, ONR Global and the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., employs more than 3,800 people, comprising uniformed, civilian and contract personnel.

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for military science and technology updates!

———-

Disclaimer: Re-published content may have been edited for length and clarity. The appearance of hyperlinks does not constitute endorsement by the Department of Defense. For other than authorized activities, such as, military exchanges and Morale, Welfare and Recreation sites, the Department of Defense does not exercise any editorial control over the information you may find at these locations. Such links are provided consistent with the stated purpose of this DoD website.



from Armed with Science http://ift.tt/1DSWTRz

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