With a plop!, a team of elementary students launched a small, remotely operated underwater vehicle into the swimming pool at Santa Paula High School. They built the device and are testing it for the first time.
The kids are participating in a program called SeaPerch, an effort by a half dozen groups to get students in Santa Paula interested in engineering careers.
"We've been building it over the last couple of weeks," said Glen City Elementary School fifth grader Maurecio Barrera.
He added that they had difficulties with the remote-controlled craft, but he's excited to see it in the water.
"It's kind of cool."
Port Christman is a Cal State Channel Islands student who is one of the project’s mentors. The craft is about the size of a shoebox and is controlled through a remote control connected to the submersible by a cable. They’re zipping around the pool.
"We're watching the SeaPerch program," said Christman. "It's a program for elementary school to high school students. They build these prefabricated robots made by the Office of Naval Research. They're trying to move them around an obstacle course."
SeaPerch is a partnership between the U.S. Navy, the Santa Paula Unified School District, the Ventura County Office of Education, Cal State Channel Islands, and Ventura College.
"What we're trying to do here is to create a STEM pipeline [from] elementary school, middle school, high school, college, and eventually employment," said Ramon Flores, STEM Coordinator with the Naval Surface Warfare Center’s Port Hueneme Division.
They want to get kids interested in engineering early in their schooling, so they'll take classes that lead to careers in the field.
"They're learning while they're having fun," said Flores.
The program is starting with kids at Santa Paula's Glen City Elementary and Isbell Middle School.
"It's creating collaborative teams and building a pathway for a future career in engineering," said Glen City Principal Julie Bergman.
But many of these kids aren’t thinking about careers as they test their handmade robotic vehicles for the first time. They're thinking fun.
"We can make it go up, we can make it go down, and sideways, and go through many obstacles," said Mia Baltazar, who's part of a team of five junior engineers who built a submersible craft.
"We had some little ups and downs, but we got it to work," Baltazar added.
Cal State Channel Islands President Richard Yao is watching the kids. He said that the goal is that in a few years, some of them may be CSUCI students.
"The STEM interest starts early," Yao said. "Getting them at this age is crucial, especially the fourth, fifth, and sixth graders. It's such an interesting time cognitively for developing their interest in science. If we don't hook them now, they could lose that very quickly."
The experience is making an impression on Louis Alvarez. The 11-year-old says he’s thinking about engineering as a possible career.
"I wanted to be a professional soccer player or an architect. But, the more I do this, the more I want to continue with this."
