NMS SeaPerch Team Wins Regional, Invited to National Competition

For the second year in a row, Northumberland Middle School (NMS) participated in a robotics project called SeaPerch (led by Mrs. Shauna McCranie, Coordinator of Gifted Services for the schools). The participating students gave up six Friday afternoons to remain after school at NMS or travel to the YMCA swimming pool in Kilmarnock to build and practice with their underwater ROV (Remote Operating Vehicle) called a Sea Perch. These students in grades 6th-8th learned to cut pipes, solder electrical panels, waterproof batteries, and work as a team. Congratulations to all of Northumberland's participants for their hard work in the SeaPerch program!

On Saturday, April 15th, four NMS teams of two took their SeaPerch to the University of Mary Washington and competed against 75 other teams (was originally scheduled for Apr. 1). After tallying up all the scores at the 5th Annual Regional SeaPerch completion this past Saturday at UMW, four teams came out as winners. These teams have been invited to Georgia Tech University on May 19th and 20th to compete at the National Sea Perch Challenge. Visit www.seaperch.org for more information.

Winning Teams (5 out of 75):

1st Place: Team Poseidon from Northumberland Middle School

2ndt Place: The Five Stars from Grafton Elementary School

3rd Place: J&J Mechanics from Margaret Brent Elementary School

4th Place: Sea Perchin from Rodney Thompson Middle School

5th Place: Raindrops from Chesapeake Science Point Public Charter School

WAY TO GO TEAM! #12/Team Poseidon- Luke Swann (grade 7) and Channing Reynolds (grade 7). You two are an amazing team! Congratulations to Luke as this is his second year competing at the National SeaPerch Challenge! Students pictured are Channing Reynolds and Luke Swann.

Special thanks to Dahlgren, NAPS, Keith Swann, Matthew Sprague and the Northern Neck Family YMCA for helping the students with the SeaPerch program. This has been an amazing grant opportunity, and hopefully Northumberland will be able to continue this awesome STEM initiative for years to come!

Team Poseidon's "Engineering Notebook" shows all the steps and trials in designing, building and testing their ROV.

Ed. Note: NAPS is proud to once again sponsor Northumberland Schools in the SeaPerch program this year, as well as other STEM-based and environmental programs.