Underwater Robotics Experiment Kicks off Jan. 7

One week from today, professionals from the Marine Science Program will begin helping students from the Oceanside Charter School, as well as the Atlantic City and Pleasantville school systems construct robots that can function underwater with the ultimate goal of victory in mind for this spring.

The project for students grades 5-8, titled "Sea Perch," kicks off Saturday, Jan. 7 at the Atlantic City Aquarium from 9 a.m.-noon. Created by the Office of Naval Research and managed by the Society of Naval Architects, the program runs for 13 Saturdays, and will eventually move from the Aquarium to the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. School Complex.

Although it has been in existence for several years, this is the first year the program is taking place in South Jersey.

The Stockton professionals will be working in concert with the Friends of American Engineering and Science and others. The students, split up into teams, will learn how to build Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) using smaller versions of the equipment that was used to cap the oil wells during the Gulf of Mexico disaster in the summer of 2010.

WIth help from interns at Stockton, the students will then learn how to operate and carry out tasks using their ROVs before participating in a competition at Drexel University in April. 

“This is an excellent opportunity for these achievement-minded students to begin their journeys to perhaps becoming tomorrow’s scientists and engineers," Jack Keith, Executive Director of the Historic Gardner’s Basin and the Atlantic City Aquarium, said. “We feel privileged to be a part of this wonderful experience for these students.”