Andrea's Portfolio

The ROV Journey

In 2015, my students and I embarked on a journey to learn about ocean biomes, ocean animals and animal adaptations. After an in-depth project-based learning (PBL) unit covering these concepts, we had the question: How do we explore the ocean? This question was timed with an early premiere of James Cameron’s film, “Deepsea Challenge 3D”, which followed Cameron’s journey in building a human-operated underwater vehicle (HOV) to explore the Mariana Trench. Armed with this curiosity, students were excited to build remotely operated videos, or ROVs, to help them learn how scientists explore the ocean. After some brainstorming with a marine scientist friend of mine, we began looking at underwater ROVs, which stand for remotely operated vehicles. With that conversation began what has now become an ongoing STEM project in collaboration with Ocean First Institute and Ocean First Education, Explore ROV.

 

In year one, students, joined by excited parents, engineering student volunteers, middle school mentors, marine scientists, and an energetic teacher, built and tested SeaPerch ROVs. A 3-day building process taught students the importance of measuring, collaboration, and reading/following directions. After students built, tested, and perfected the ROVs, they began the process of designing a series of maneuverability challenges for our pool competition. Each team was tasked with designing a challenge that all teams would put their ROVs through such as maneuvering through underwater hula hoops, or racing to the end of the pool and back. In our final competition event, each team would compete in the challenges and earn points. This was a fun-filled event, as students worked as teams to maneuver their ROVs, and fix problems on the spot. The winning ROV was the ROV that came with me on my excursion to Kodiak, Alaska, where I was a NOAA Teacher at Sea on board the ship Oscar Dyson. While the ROV was not robust enough to deploy from the ship, we did deploy it from the dock near the ship and from shore on the island, giving students a chance to see underwater critters such as jellyfish and fish.

 

In year two, I had a unique class situation. I had half the students from the previous year, and half a class that had never heard of an ROV. I was challenged with creating a “next-level” challenge for students who had already gone through the process of building the ROVs. Again, I contacted my brainstorming team of scientists and engineers, and we came up with this challenge: Many ROVs are equipped with various attachments to collect data (such as a robotic arm to collect sediment samples). Using 3D modeling software, students were tasked with creating an attachment for their ROV that would collect data.

 

The Importance of Explore ROV

I’ve included ROV Mission in my digital portfolio because it incorporates PBL, STEM, and experiential learning. It first shows my love for taking on challenging projects. The ROVs that we built were part of a project meant for middle school-age students (and older); however, I knew with the right support, my 4th grade students would succeed. Second, it shows my experiential style of teaching. You would not walk into a typical 4th grade class and see students sawing PVC pipe or soldering a circuit board; however, I knew building the ROVs would be an experience my students would never forget. Finally, this project was cross-curricular, STEM learning at its finest. Students had opportunities to hone their math skills as they converted measurements, write about their learning in reflective blogs, read challenging directions, and learn how to work with tools some had never even touched.

 

If you would like to read more about the PBL that sparked this project, please see Ocean Animals and Adaptations. 

 

Building ROVs sticks out in my mind as one of the most engaging experiences my students have had. It also highlights the importance of collaboration, not only between student teams, but collaboration with scientists, parents, middle school student mentors, and engineers that came in to help our groups. By building and testing the ROV, students worked through challenges such as buoyancy, a concept we hadn’t covered in class that year. Most students had never held a soldering iron, but were empowered when our engineering student volunteers showed them how easy it was.

 

As I work with my students on the design process, we all learned the importance of testing a design, and modifying a design based on those tests. We learned a lot in our pool competition the first year that we modified for the second year. For example, propellers and screws fell off the ROVs as they maneuvered them around the pool during our competition. Having extra parts and tools on hand was essential so the students could get their ROVs back up and running. About half of the time at the competition was spent troubleshooting, while the other half gave the students opportunities to participate in the various challenges, such as knocking ping-pong balls from the top of floating turtles.

 

The Future of Explore ROV

As an educator, I have learned so much these past 2 years in running this project with my students. It continues to be a fun, engaging project that I would like to continue with my students each year.

Lessons learned:

• Collaboration is important, both as a teacher and as a student. I needed the help of others to make this project a success with my students. My students needed help from one another to accomplish difficult tasks such as covering the motors with toilet bowl wax (definitely a 4+- handed process!).

• As much as you try, you cannot always anticipate the challenges that will arise. The best thing you can do is be prepared to guide students through a difficult task and be supportive of their struggles.

• Testing and redesign are important, and are processes that can take longer than the actual building of a device itself.

• Projects that are unique and allow students to use their hands are often the most engaging

 

The evolution of ROV mission has sparked many ideas for the future. While I will continue to build these ROVs with my students, and offer extension design challenges to modify the ROVs, I would also like to build on the project to create more real-world learning opportunities. After my experience bringing the ROV with me as a Teacher at Sea, I would like to take this experience even further by learning from real-life ROV operators and by building more robust ROVs.

 

The NOAA ship Okeanos Explorer is a ship solely devoted to ocean exploration. They have two ROVs on their ship that collect data and take video of the areas they explore. During the future building process, I would like to have students contact real-life ROV operators on board this ship to learn about ROVs in the real world.

 

In working with Ocean First Education (OFE) and Ocean First Institute (OFI), two companies that promote ocean education and conservation here in Colorado, we have brainstormed ways to take this journey even further. OpenROV is a company that has recently been funded through their Kickstarter campaign. These ROVs are more robust than the SeaPerch ROVs we have been using, and allow for more modification. In conjunction with OFE/OFI, the companies that have supported our building of the SeaPerch ROVs, we are creating a campaign to purchase OpenROVs to build and explore with to further the learning in this project. With this opportunity and the technology(such as a 3D printer and laser engraver) available at our school, the possibilities for furthering this project are endless!