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with a space program and we got to golook at how those worked and learned about basic math in middle school,? said Janine Mask of the Florida Atlantic Uni- versity Team. For a few hours on Saturday, June 11th, you could see these robots in action atthe Founders Inn pool operated by mid- dle and high school students. Grace Magdamo, niece of Susan Nel-son of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers (SNAME) and Education and Outreach Director of theSeaPerch program, built her SeaPerch in the sixth grade and is now a high school student at Watkins Mill High School in Gaithersburg, MD. Last summer, Grace attended GEMS (Gains in the Educationof Mathematics and Science), a U.S.Army K-12 program, where she learnedmore about robotics. ?It was a lot of fun exploring the areas of engineering. We did biology, we dissected a sheep brain. And it was programming robots to move around a chair. It was a sprinkling of everything.? More and younger women like Grace are pursuing careers in engi- neering, thanks to programs like GEMS, SeaPerch and the efforts of the AUVSI Foundation. There was also a teacher training class for local teachers facilitated by Susan Nelson and Toby Ratcliffe, Research Hy- drodynamicist, Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock Division and Educa- tional Outreach Coordinator, National Defense Education Program (NDEP)Pre-Engineering Program. Teachers all over America are looking to programs like SeaPerch as a way of getting their students to see the wonderful benefits of science, technology, engineering and mathematics in the real world. At the awards dinner, Kelly Cooper challenged all students present.?SeaPerch is one of our key STEM pro- grams at ONR for the K-12 componentof what we are doing for outreach. We would like to offer that each of the teams that are participating in RoboSub andRoboBoat, as an opportunity for you toreach out to high school students in yourlocal area, that you can then recruit to bea member of your AUV [autonomous un- derwater vehicle] or ASV [autonomous surface vehicle] team.? Ms. Cooper went on to say, ?We will provide mentorship to you to train you on how to do the SeaPerch program. We will provide the SeaPerch kits to you so you can work with the students and start involving them in what you are doing in hopes of recruiting them to your team inthe future.? She went on to say, ?We will give a $5,000 award for community outreach to the team that does the best with this over the next year.? October 2011www.marinelink.com 47Image AboveThe Diponegora University Indonesia team is jubilant with their 6th Place andInnovation in Design and Cost Performance awards at the 4th International RobobBoat Competition. This represents their first attempt at an international competition.Image Above RightDamien Bretall Instructs the fine art of soldering as part of the SeaPerch Teacher Training class held at the 4th International RobobBoat Competition in Virginia Beach. MR Oct.11 # 6 (42-49):MR Template 10/5/2011 1:02 PM Page 47