This year I have been fortunate enough to work with an 8th grade Robotics class. The first project this class worked on was building a SeaPerch, check it out if you have never seen it and go to YouTube for some really cool videos of them in action. The Robotics course went through all the steps to measure and put these vehicles together. They were able to test them in the long sink and a garbage can, due to several constraints. Our 8th graders made an iMovie to share with the 4th graders about the engineering process to build these submersibles. The last part of the project was to attach some waterproof cameras to the SeaPerch and take some footage of it's movement. We were able to get one video, but had some errors in the footage (we ran out of memory and/or battery - one camera actually broke).
Our 4th grade students take a field trip to Sherwood Island State Park in Westport, CT as part of their ecosystems unit, which also connects amazingly to the 3rd grade adaptations unit. We came up with the idea to have our 4th graders, who also study force and motion, launch these SeaPerch submersibles into Long Island Sound to test them out. We made great connections and had some really great discussions as to the differences and challenges faced as compared to the controlled lab environment.
This was an amazing experience for our students! Our plan from this point is to put together the footage and some pictures. We will then have a discussion between the 8th graders and 4th graders about some problems we had when launching the SeaPerch into Long Island Sound.
We uploaded the videos to Vimeo. Check them out!
Sherwood Island - Part 1
Sherwood Island - Part 2
Sherwood Island - Part 3
Underwater Footage
We definitely learned many things! I look forward to a return next year to improve upon this adventure!
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