Students show off underwater engineering skills at 7th annual Sea Perch tournament

 

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- Kids from all over the region came to Milwaukee today for a big engineering tournament in a swimming pool.

More than 160 middle school and high school students are competing in teams, showing off their underwater engineering skills.

The Navy League's 7th annual SeaPerch tournament brought students from Illinois and Wisconsin to University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Klotsche Center.

"Practical applications, getting out of the classroom, and who doesn't want to play with water?" said Erik Wolbach, president of the Milwaukee Navy League.

Teams are competing with remotely operated vehicles to complete tasks underwater.

"We had to open up a hatch, take off an octopus, put a fish into a basket and take stuff out of a basket." explained Henry Peplinski, a senior at Union Grove High School.

"They got a basic kit of parts, plus they can use 25-dollars of additional parts of their choice, usually 3D-printed parts are the big one that they use," Wolbach said.

Each team has to do three things: earn points in a mission course, move through rings in an obstacle course, and give a presentation to professional engineers.

"They have a posterboard that they created depicting their engineering design process," Wolbach explained. "That's really what we want the kids to walk away with is knowing the engineering design process. The rest of it is mostly just fun."

Many of the teams are in an engineering class, like The Stingrays from Union Grove, who have been preparing for two months.

"We did it every day and it was a lot of work," said junior Lizzy Hapka. "My goal is just to do good and have fun."

It's more than just science and math - the competition teaches troubleshooting and perseverance, creating future engineers.

"I learned a lot from the experience, and I had a lot of fun doing it, and I'm going to do it again next year," said freshman Savannah Michalski.

The four top teams from this competition will advance to the international tournament in Maryland this may.