Stockbridge Students Make a Splash in Underwater Robotics at Innovative Vehicle Design Challenge

The team from Left to right Kael Bunce, Colin Lilley, Chelsey Asquith, Faith Whitt, Hailey Howard and Madi Howard explaining the ROV’s control system to the event judge. Photo credit: user supplied photo.

Saturday, March 10, students from Stockbridge Jr/Sr. High School placed first in Design and Innovation at this year’s Square One Education Network’s Underwater Innovative Vehicle Design Challenge. The IVD challenge, which took place at the Roseville High School in Roseville, Mich., marked the 10^th annual event for Square One. This year’s Stockbridge team consisted of seniors Madi Howard, Colin Lilley, and Faith Whitt along with sophomore Kael Bunce and freshmen Chelsey Asquith and Hailey Howard.

“Our team was very excited to be part of Square One’s Underwater Robotics IVD Challenge this year,” the team’s faculty mentor Bob Richards said. “Participating in this event has sparked our students’ imagination and reasoning abilities to create vehicles that can effectively move underwater, providing them with practical application of their STEM classroom learning.”

Students from SJSHS and other schools that were enrolled in the Square One Education Network’s STEM-focused curriculum came together to test their knowledge of marine robotics at the organization’s IVD Challenge.

Representing the next generation of technical talent, 29 teams of third through 12^th-graders competed in various challenges using underwater remotely operated vehicles that they had designed and built for the competition. The underwater vehicle teams were evaluated based on design innovation, engineering and craftsmanship, performance, ambassadorship, presentation, enthusiasm and use of social media. The challenges encouraged fun, problem solving and teamwork and followed a civil engineering theme, including a traffic jam, an underwater expressway, an underwater surveying task, and an underwater IVD drag race.