Claremont
While Page ran the controls, steering the ROV forward, up and down and left and right, Numme was paying attention to the attached cable, making sure it did not get snared in the ROV’s small propellers.
A day later, at the team’s “clubhouse” in the Diana Love Center on Elm Street, Page was replacing one of the motors after a wire had come loose.
“The solder broke, but instead of soldering it again, we just put in a whole new motor,” said Page, as he wrapped the motor with electrical tape.
The practice and subsequent repairs were part of the final preparation for Saturday’s national SeaPerch competition at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. The four-member team of Numme and Page, who are homeschooled, and Andrew Friend, 15, and Stephen Bosonac, 17, both students at Stevens High School, call themselves SAAM, from the first letters of their first names.
SeaPerch is an underwater robotics program sponsored by the Office of Naval Research through the nonprofit Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International. It is named for the USS Perch, a submarine that was scuttled in the Pacific by its crew after a depth-charge attack during World War II. It was discovered in 2006 on the ocean floor and became the subject of an archeological exploration. The annual SeaPerch competition started in 2011. It includes nearly all 50 states and more than 100,000 students have participated.
Though related in concept, it is separate from the FIRST Robotics Program for high school students, started in the early 1990s by New Hampshire inventor Dean Kamen.
Rogue Robots of 4-H, a Claremont-based club with about 60 members, focuses on robotics and technology and has sponsored and trained teams in several competitions over the last five years. This year, SAAM was one of three teams from the 4-H club that competed in the regional SeaPerch event in early April
SAAM earned the right to compete against 175 teams in the national competition by placing second in the New England regionals at UNH against more than 50 teams.
“I’m apprehensive but I’m excited,” said Page about the national event. “I know the competition is going to be the best in the nation, so I am also nervous.”
SAAM constructed the ROV from a basic kit that included PVC pipe, a control box and cable, as well as three motors that the team decides how to secure to the PVC. The team had to cut the pipe and solder wires to motors and waterproof them among other steps in the design and construction phase. Painted bright orange — to make it more visible in the pool — the box design is more stable than models from last year, explained Friend.
“It would flip and roll,” Friend said about their experience in the 2015 SeaPerch competition. “The box design with the motors on the bottom is more stable because the center of buoyancy (the flotation pieces wrapped around the plastic pipes) over the center of mass (the motors).”
The hoop obstacle course is one of two challenges that teams must complete. The second involves four towers with wiffle balls of various sizes inside three of the towers. The teams must use the ROV to slide open a lever and move a ball into an opening, then slide the lever back to release the balls one at a time into the water. The ROV has to collect the balls by placing them in the vehicle’s plastic netting, then motor over to an upside-down crate and release them so they float up inside the crate. The fourth tower contains golf balls that have to be released from the bottom, then pushed up an inclined plane and dropped into a bucket. Releasing a ball from one of the towers earns a team one point and placing a ball in its designated spot is worth five points.
SAAM began its preparation in early February with design and construction of the ROV, followed by many modifications to make it perform the way they wanted. Page said it took a few weeks before they were ready for testing.
“There were a lot of little finicky changes. Some worked, others didn’t, and we had to rework the design some,” said Page, who said he plans on an education and career in prosthetic engineering. “It has presented us with unique challenges that we had to overcome. Each robot is different, but we think our design is more efficient in doing the courses we were challenged with.”
The four team members share an interest in engineering and have been involved in the robotics program with the group for a few years.
“It is what I love to spend my time doing,” Numme said about her interest in engineering.
All four also participated in the regional FIRST robotics competition this year. This is the first year they have been on the same team.
Their second place finish at UNH took them by surprise, said Numme’s mother, Pam, who is one of the team’s mentors along with Jeff Proehl of Cornish. “They just sort of sat there and I said, ‘come on. Get up there. They just called your name,’ ” Pam Numme said.
The team has raised money for the trip with donations and a GoFundMe page and will leave Friday for the one-day competition. With eight pools, Page said, many teams will be competing at the same time and he believes SAAM can improve on its regional performance.
“I expect we will do better at the nationals because of practicing and some changes we made,” he said.
Numme said winning would be nice but the experience will have more staying power in their lives.
“Our whole attitude is you get out of it what you put into it,” Pam Numme said. “Winning would be nice, but what is far more important are the life skills, the social skills and understanding. That is the real trophy and is way more fulfilling; the other collects dust.”
Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.
