News Release | Community
Los Fresnos High School took first place at the 2020 SeaPerch Challenge held at the Brownsville ISD Margaret M. Clark Aquatic Center on Friday, Jan. 17. The competition kicked off a new format to Hispanic Engineering, Science and Technology (HESTEC) this spring semester. Second place went to Roma High School and third place was awarded to Harlingen Early High School.
Friday, January 17, 2020
Community
By Victoria Brito
PHOTO GALLERY by David Pike
BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS – HESTEC launched the start of yearlong festivities on Friday with the annual SeaPerch Challenge, held at the Brownsville ISD’s Margaret M. Clark Aquatic Center in Brownsville.
Hosted by UTRGV and the U.S. Navy, SeaPerch is an underwater robotics competition for high school students. Through the use of remote operated vehicles, or ROVs, the students utilize STEM concepts to command their devices.
This winners of this year’s SeaPerch Challenge 2020 are:
The first- and second-place winners now advance to the National SeaPerch Challenge, scheduled for May 30-31 at the University of Maryland.
Karen Dorado, UTRGV director of special programs, said SeaPerch is an annual event designed to boost science, technology, engineering and mathematics awareness in education.
“This competition has been part of HESTEC for many years,” she said, “and we host it to be able to promote STEM fields and our university.”
High school students from across the Rio Grande Valley participated in this year’s event, which has three main components: the obstacle, the challenge and the interview.
During the obstacle, each team has two attempts to navigate its ROV device underwater through a variety of loops.
The challenge has teams place rings on different platforms underwater to accumulate points for each successful placement.
And for the interview, teams meet with UTRGV faculty and a U.S. Navy representative to discuss how they built their ROV devices.
REAL-LIFE ROBOTICS IN PRACTICE
Macario Guerra, coach of the Roma High School team, said students received their unassembled ROV device in December and began work on assembly.
Julie Hernandez and Ashley Magaña, juniors at Roma HS, said the most important knowledge acquired during the assembly process was the emphasis on teamwork and adjustments.
And the event itself provided important lessons about maneuvering.
“The current will take the object you’re moving to the side during navigation, and if the vertical motors aren’t powerful enough, challenges will occur,” Hernandez said.
ABOUT UTRGV
The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) was created by the Texas Legislature in 2013 as the first major public university of the 21st century in Texas. This transformative initiative provided the opportunity to expand educational opportunities in the Rio Grande Valley, including a new School of Medicine, and made it possible for residents of the region to benefit from the Permanent University Fund – a public endowment contributing support to the University of Texas System and other institutions.
UTRGV has campuses and off-campus research and teaching sites throughout the Rio Grande Valley including in Boca Chica Beach, Brownsville (formerly The University of Texas at Brownsville campus), Edinburg (formerly The University of Texas-Pan American campus), Harlingen, McAllen, Port Isabel, Rio Grande City, and South Padre Island. UTRGV, a comprehensive academic institution, enrolled its first class in the fall of 2015, and the School of Medicine welcomed its first class in the summer of 2016.