Clinton students post busy, successful month of March in underwater robotics challenges

CLINTON — It’s become evident over the last handful of school years that Clinton students enjoy working with robotics and excel when competing at regional and statewide competitions.

It turned out to be a busy and successful month of March for several Clinton Community Schools students who participated in underwater robotics competitions.

Here’s a little bit about each of the competitions and how the local students fared:

2024 Michigan Regional SeaPerch Competition

Three teams of middle and high school students from Clinton Community Schools will represent the Redwolves district at the University of Maryland May 13-14 where they are to participate in the International SeaPerch Challenge, a robotics event that brings in approximately 250 teams from seven countries and 80 regionals across the United States.

To punch their ticket to Maryland in mid-May, the students placed first overall in a trio of divisions/categories March 15-16 during the Michigan Regional SeaPerch Underwater Robotics Competition, which was coordinated and held indoors for the first time at the Clinton Elementary School gymnasium.

The Michigan Regional SeaPerch Challenge was co-hosted by Clinton Community Schools and the University of Michigan Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering Department.

“The Michigan Regional SeaPerch Challenge could not have succeeded without the generosity and support of the University of Michigan’s Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering Department, as well as the incredible support from the Clinton Community Schools administration, school board, maintenance and staff, and Lenawee County Science Consultant Jackie Murray,” a news release from the Michigan SeaPerch Challenge said. “Hundreds of students across the state and beyond were able to engage in a valuable STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) experience like SeaPerch because of their investment.”

The competition registered just under 60 middle and high school teams from as far away as Petoskey, Columbus, Ohio, and Indiana to compete in four different robotics-based challenges, the release said. Those challenges consisted of:

Pool Mission Course, with a series of tasks requiring robots to open doors, transport sinking and floating items and navigate through complex structures.

Pool Obstacle Courses, testing robot high-speed maneuverability through a series of hoops at varying depths and angles.

Technical Design Report, that documented the development of the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) features including the design prototypes and their testing results.

Drag Race, a bracket-styled competition which allowed all teams to compete head-to-head and test their ROVs top speeds. Scores/results from this challenge are not calculated for international qualifications.

The three Clinton teams placed first overall in the High School Stock, Middle School Stock and Open Class Division. The winning teams were:

• OceanPerch: Brian Ferree, Jaren Settles and Robert McDonald who placed overall first in the Open Class Division, earning first place wins in the Pool Obstacle Course, Pool Mission Course and Team Video.

• Dandruff: Broden Manchester, Jacob Pizio and Cole Hillegonds who placed first in the High School Division, earning first place wins in the Pool Obstacle Course, Pool Mission Course and Technical Design Report.

• Team Drop Off: Grant Kutzley, Jaxon Phillip and Gradyn Whelan who placed first in the Middle School Division, earning first place wins in the Pool Obstacle Course, Pool Mission Course and Middle School Drag Race, and registering a fourth-place mark in the Technical Design Report.

Advanced STEM teams excel in underwater robotics competitions

A team of Advanced STEM students from Clinton High School participated for only their second time in the Square One Underwater Innovative Vehicle Design (IVD) Competition hosted at the Charlotte Aquatic Center March 20.

The team of Gabriel Manchester and Jaren Settles designed and built an ROV to travel underwater and perform multiple competition performance tasks. The students built upon the ideas/successes of teams from the previous year and claimed first place in the Ambassador Project, first place in the Perfect Pitch competition and first place for Overall Performance in the Senior Division.

The Ambassador Project recognized different teams' ability to “be the most effective in inspiring younger students in STEM,” a news release from Clinton schools said. Through an outreach program of engaging STEM activities, teams completed this objective alongside middle school teacher Mike Krauss and his eighth-grade STEM class as they showcased their knowledge of the engineering process.

The first-place performance was a compilation of pool events that included moving buoys, changing several underwater temperature gauges to meet competition specifications, and calculating the displacement of water and the buoyancy of an object using equations.

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The Pitch Perfect sector of the competition related to the team's ability to deliver a well-composed “elevator pitch” to judges and engineers on their IVD journey and the excellence their ROV represents towards innovation in vehicle design. Having only one minute to deliver the pitch, their information had to be both concise and impactful, Clinton schools said.

“One of the unique facets of this competition was the challenge that required the ROVs driver to not look in the pool while driving the vehicle, but instead to use a monitor that displayed the onboard feed from a mounted fishing camera,” the release said. “The ROV was built with bilge pump motors, PVC and a 30-foot cord tethered to a 12-volt power source. The robot was maneuvered by a fairly complicated control box with four DPDT switches that controlled the four propulsion motors.”

— Contact reporter Brad Heineman at bheineman@lenconnect.com or follow him on X, formerly Twitter: www.twitter.com/LenaweeHeineman.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Clinton students continue to excel in underwater robotics competitions