Lefler and Novo compete in national SeaPerch competition

By AL STOVER

Staff Reporter

Carter Lefler and Collin Novo became the first students from Westwood Middle School to compete at the 2016 SeaPerch National Challenge at Louisiana State University (LSU) in Baton Rouge, La., last May. The team finished 57th out of 92 with 165 points - making them No. 4 in the Top-5 education stories for 2016.

Lefler and Novo of Aqua Troopers took first place at the sixth annual Inland Northwest SeaPerch Challenge at the Eastern Washington University pool, Feb. 27.

Three other teams from Westwood and four from Cheney Middle School also competed at the Inland Northwest SeaPerch Challenge.

According to its website, SeaPerch is a program that equips teachers and students with resources to build an underwater remotely operated vehicle - ROV. Students build the ROV from a kit comprised of low-cost, easily accessible parts, following a curriculum that teaches engineering and science concepts with a marine engineering theme.

During competitions, teams of 2-3 students used their ROVs to navigate an underwater obstacle course, capture and transport rings into a bucket and place a cap on the top of a traffic cone. Times from each event are calculated and averaged for the final score.

In a February interview, Karen Runyon, adviser for Westwood's SeaPerch program, said the hardest event for her students was the capping event. Part of what made the event challenging was students had to maneuver their ROVs by looking through a camera instead of standing at poolside.

"We finally had students put the cap on the cone this year," Runyon said. "To have some students get the cap on this year is an accomplishment."

Runyon added that teams drove their ROVs in a horse tank to prepare for the competition, but more practice at the EWU pool would have been nicer.

Lefler and Novo weren't the only Westwood students to have success at the Inland Northwest Challenge. Carl Enburg, William Emert and Garner Prior took first place in the poster and presentation part of the competition where students documented the progress of building their ROV and shared the problems and solutions they came across leading up to the competition.

Students used power tools such as a drill and a soldering iron to build their vehicles. They also added modifications students can make when building their ROVs, such as drilling the right amount of air holes into PVC pipes to allow it to breathe without having it float or sink. Adding pink, pool-noodle type floats helps tighten up the frame and mounting a camera on the ROV to help control it under water.

"When your ROV is under water, you almost can't see (what you're doing)," Westwood student Adrian Cleaver said. "The water is moving in different directions. You also have to use waterproof gel on the propellers on the ROV's motors to move it back and forth so it can cut through the water."

Teams will also put together circuit boards for their ROVs, which Cleaver said "It's like gluing pedals back on a flower."

Al Stover can be reached at al@cheneyfreepress.com.