Victory at Sea Perch for the Holy Angels team

Written by Mary Beth Peabody
For the last nine years, students at Holy Angels Catholic School in Woodbury have participated in an underwater robotics competition known as Sea Perch. Over the course of several months, the students design, build and direct a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) to navigate a complicated underwater obstacle course and complete an underwater mission.

At the end of January, as the 2020 Sea Perch team was preparing for the April 4 regional competition at Rowan University, they learned that Confirmation was scheduled for the same day. It would be impossible for eighth graders to compete, despite months of planning, designing and building. With no time to spare, the team changed course and signed up for the March 6 regional event at Temple University. They lost a month of preparation time and discovered that the Temple and Rowan competitions had assigned different missions.

Teamwork and grit prevailed and, in a field of 19 participating schools, Holy Angels earned second place honors in two key competition categories – Vehicle Performance and Technical Design Report. Eighth grader Angeline Holbrook was the ROV driver.
“It’s a lot of pressure,” said Matthew Tornese, Holy Angels’ seventh grade teacher and Sea Perch moderator. “She was shouldering the weight of the entire team.”
“You just have to stay calm,” said Angeline, who credited her navigator, classmate Hannah Capolingua, with helping her stay focused. “She just said ‘block them out.’ And I did, and it worked.” Angeline was still beaming in the aftermath of last week’s performance.
As Angeline and classmates Chris Hagan and Rachael Summers describe it, Sea Perch has elements of a fiercely competitive swim meet. Schools compete in heats of five, each in their own lane. One driver and one navigator from each school are permitted poolside. All other team members and guests must sit in sideline balconies, where cheering becomes a roar of echoes, making it difficult for the driver to hear the navigator’s directions.
After earning second place in the obstacle course, the Holy Angels’ ROV faced a 10-step “Ninja Warrior Mission,” which involved movement through tunnels, hoops, gates, inclines, and a disruptive bubble machine to release a geyser, pick up and discard a water bottle, close the gate on a vault  raise a flag, among other tasks.
Students were required to submit an extensive Technical Design Report about their project and make a ten minute formal presentation to Sea Perch judges – a simulated sales pitch to the United States Navy for their robotic vehicle.
Building the vehicle and remote control device are among several steps in the Sea Perch process. Tornese explained that students try to simulate many course elements based on photographs and measurements they receive in advance from the competition sponsor. But their 16-foot diameter practice space is above ground and smaller than the real course. Plus, they don’t know exactly how the competition course will be set up.
According to Chris Hagan, the students’ original ROV had to be revamped once the team simulated elements of the Ninja Warrior Mission for the Temple event. “We took the whole entire thing apart. We put weights in the front, put more pool noodle on [for floatation], put the hook back on, drilled more air holes. We still had a lot of work to do but we pulled it together,” he said.
The team met at Riverwinds Community Center in West Deptford the night before the competition. They brought the obstacles they had created and got in the pool to set up their own simulated course. Their ROV, which they nicknamed “The Stallion,” was ready to compete.
Tornese acknowledged the extraordinary team work required for Sea Perch, and the fun that comes with it.
“You work for [several] months and it’s just one day,” said Tornese. “Imagine it’s football and the only thing is the Super Bowl. There’s no season. You’ve put so much work into it, and now it’s all over.”
Rachael Summers plans to help out with the Sea Perch club, which will continue to meet with sixth and seventh graders for the next month. Her grandfather, a former Sea Perch judge, suggested the program for the school nine years ago, and Rachael’s interest in the program grew when her older sister was on the team.
According to its website, http://www.phillynavalstem.com/, the goal of The Greater Philadelphia Sea Perch Challenge is to increase student interest in robotics, science, mathematics, engineering and technology and to introduce students to naval engineering. The event is structured to give students an overall experience in the engineering process.”