Page 37: of Marine Technology Magazine (July 2005)

Results from NE Regional ROV Competition

Team Name Engineering & Comm Mission Report Total Rank

Engineering Poster Score Score Score

High Tech 45.2 16 139.1 21 221.3 1

Milton 24 14.15 125.7 15 178.85 2

North Kingstown H.S. 52 13.82 109.8 0 175.62 3

Cambridge Rindge & Latin 26.6 16.88 109.2 14 166.68 4

South Kingstown H.S. 45 14.47 88.1 17 164.57 5

Plymouth N. 60.5 16.9 46 9 132.4 6

Sound School 43 10.03 48.4 18 119.43 7

ELMS 41 14.1 26 3 84.1 8

ELHS 39 4.5 14 8 65.5 9

Cranston 0 0 0 11 11 10 38 MTR July/August 2005 of four boys and one girl. One of the team members explained their roles; Casuarina Hart said she did a lot of the written work as well as work with the sealing wax. She said, "we are all Math Club kids, writing isn't our thing, so I was elected to write the report". In most cases teams took this on as an extra curricular activity; in lieu of par- ticipating in a sport.

This crew named their vehicle, Leviathan. The team designed a closed, solid vehicle — mimicking a torpedo — making it more streamlined to maximize speed. They spent much design time optimizing thruster placement to maximize hydrodynamic flow. Leviathan was unique in this competition with the use of four thrusters, as the team determined it afforded more accurate control of pitch, roll and yaw.

Being typical high-schoolers with diverse schedules, the team split specific tasks and, all told, it took this team about eight weeks to finish. The team had a great mentor in Walt Hudson, who retired last year from the school, but he came back to help with this project. He assisted faculty member Steve Picotte, the Robotics and Wood shop instructor. South Kingstown High's team completed two of the three in-the-water tasks; ranked 3rd on its tech- nical report; ranked 3rd on its poster; and ranked 4th on its engineering presentation.

School Plymouth North High School

Rank Sixth

Senior Andrew Browning lead a team of 20 students ranking from freshmen to seniors enrolled in a full-year robotics class at Plymouth North High School which reg- ularly competes in other land based robotics competi- tions, but never before a marine-related event. Faculty advisor, Mike Bastoni said, "we will definitely do this next year." They invested this year in learning the ropes, and intentionally crafted a younger team so they would have experience for next year's competition. Bastoni feels it is appropriate for the public school to focus on developing marine technologies since Plymouth is located right on

Massachusetts Bay. Ironically, despite the team's aquatic proximity, it had a terrible time gaining access to a pool to test its systems. The team's sponsor was ENTERGY, the company which operates the Pilgrim Nuclear Power

Plant. The team interested ENTERGY by showing the company that the ROV they designed could also be used to inspect inside nuclear fuel containment vessels. PNHS scored 1st in engineering; 2nd on the poster; and 7th in the water mission.

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