Sea Perch Institute Challenge 2011

On May 6, 2011, the MIT Sea Grant College program hosted the Sea Perch Institute Challenge at MIT’s Zesiger Athletic Center pool. Nearly 300 middle and high school students from four schools worked in teams to address a complex engineering problem using remotely operated underwater vehicles they built themselves. The challenge was to analyze and remediate a deep-water oil spill resulting from a blowout.

About Sea Perch

The Sea Perch is a simple, underwater remotely operated vehicle, or ROV, made from PVC pipe and other inexpensive, easily available materials. The Sea Perch Program, created by the MIT Sea Grant College Program in 2003, trains educators across the United States and around the world to build the Sea Perch. Teachers then work with students to build their own customized Sea Perches and deploy them on research missions such as water quality testing. The hands-on Sea Perch experience is a gateway to further study and careers in robotics, engineering, marine sciences and more. Sea Perch been implemented by over 300 teachers in 16 US states and internationally.

About the Sea Perch Institute

The Sea Perch Institute (SPI) is a multi-year program that works with veteran Sea Perch schools to build upon the basic Sea Perch course with a more advanced and multidisciplinary curriculum. To be selected for the program, schools are required to demonstrate support from school administration and the involvement of multiple teachers and classrooms.

For the 2010-2011 academic year, MIT Sea Grant worked with Stoneham High School (Stoneham, MA), Dexter and Southfield Schools (Brookline, MA), Rogers High School (Newport, RI), and Swampscott Middle School (Swampscott, MA). For these schools, MIT Sea Grant has provided monthly classroom visits, mentoring, professional development opportunities, cost-sharing of supplies and materials as well as opportunities to bring students to MIT to tour labs and test vehicles. The students spent the year engaged in hands-on learning through simulated engineering experiences in marine robotics. The Sea Perch Institute was developed and implemented by MIT Sea Grant, and is sponsored by the Office of Naval Research.

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A Production of Media Arts Studio @ Cambridge Rindge and Latin School

Media Journalism Class: Zolan Kanno-Young, Corey Tippett, Peter Eccles, Jack Kernochan, Kasia Maciak, Peter Rodrigues