[Mark Losavio] Right. Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us everybody,
and welcome to this Submerged NC webinar series. Today's webinar is Engineering in the Classroom
with Underwater ROVs with Shannon Ricles. I am Mark Lasavio and the media and outreach
coordinator for the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary, and I will be your host today.
This webinar is brought to you by the NOAA Monitor National Marine Sanctuary in collaboration with
the North Carolina Office of State Archaeology. Partnering since 1975, NOAA and the State of
North Carolina worked to research, honor, and protect the hallmarks of North Carolina's
underwater cultural heritage - shipwrecks. These shipwrecks hold information about the
ever-changing technological, cultural and physical landscapes. They serve as a uniquely accessible
underwater museum and a memorial to generations of mariners who lived, died, worked, and fought
off our shores. This is one of the many webinars we will be hosting in the coming months for this
Submerged NC webinar series in collaboration with the North Carolina Office of State Archaeology.
Monitor is one of just now 15 national marine sanctuaries and two marine national monuments
in the National Marine Sanctuary System. This system encompasses more than 600,000 square miles
of marine and Great Lakes waters from Washington State to the Florida Keys and from Lake Huron
to American Samoa. During the presentation, all attendees will be in listen only mode.
You are welcome to type questions for the presenter into the question box at the bottom
of the control panel on the right hand side of your screen. This is the same area you can let
us know about any technical issues you may be having that we can help with. I'll be monitoring
the incoming questions, so any technical issues that you have, put them in the chat and I'll try
to help and respond to them as soon as I can. We will be recording this session in case something
goes wrong and you miss it. And we will share the recording with everybody who registered via
the webinar archive page. A URL for this webpage will be provided at the end of the presentation.
So without further ado, today we welcome our presenter Shannon Ricles, the education and
outreach coordinator for the Monitor national marine sanctuary. as we learn more about ROVs.
So I'll go ahead and change presenter to you and take it away. [Shannon Ricles] All right.
[Shannon Ricles] Let me make sure you're seeing the correct screen.
Okay, are you seeing the PowerPoint now?
[Mark Losavio] Not yet. There we go, there we go. [Shannon Ricles] Okay, all right. Thank you, thank
you Mark. Well, hi everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today. I'm really excited to be here
and so glad that you were able to make it. So just to start out, my PowerPoint is not wanting
to move. So there we are. So I just wanted to go over, that in this webinar, we're going to
explore how to bring engineering into your classroom using remotely operated vehicles
or more commonly called ROVs. First, I'm going to briefly tell you about our sanctuary and the
shipwreck we protect, the USS Monitor. I'll tell you how it was discovered using sonar technology
and how NOAA maritime archaeologists used ROVs to survey and document World War II shipwrecks
off the North Carolina coast. And how they have also helped us to discover new shipwrecks. We
will explore engineering and discuss how to...I'm sorry... introduce the engineering design process
in your classroom. And we'll show you various ways that your students can build a simple ROV.
We will also explore how you can access free curriculum and resources to help you
bring engineering into your classroom. So let's get started.
So first, let's start with John Ericsson. He was a Swedish American, who was one of the 19th
century's most creative engineers and inventors. Ericsson joined the Swedish army at the age of 17,
and his engineering talents were quickly recognized, and he moved up the rank.
He moved to England and pursued a variety of engineering projects, including hot air engines,
locomotives, and steam-powered engines. He also significantly improved the screw propeller,
which helped him gain a reputation as a talented engineer. But Ericsson was most famous for
the engineering design of the USS Monitor, our nation's first turreted ironclad warship. Now
the Monitor was built during the Civil War in response to the Confederate's ironclad ship the
CSS Virginia. An amazing fact about the Monitor is that it was built in just less than a hundred
days. And on March 9th, 1862, the Monitor and the Virginia met in the Battle of Hampton Roads.
It was the first time iron met iron, and although they battled for about four hours,
neither side won the day. But what did win that day was naval technology. Iron was here to stay.
Unfortunately, just 11 months after its launch, the Monitor sank off the coast of Cape Hatteras
in a storm while it was being towed to Beaufort, North Carolina. 16 men went down with the ship
on New Year's Eve of 1862. Now the Monitor's location remained unknown until 1973 when John G. Newton,
from the Duke University Marine Lab proposed testing the application of geological
survey equipment, sonar, for underwater archaeological survey and assessment.
He wanted to search for the Monitor's location, and on the last day of the expedition,
the side scan sonar recorded a long amorphous echo. The site was confirmed in April 1974,
as the Monitor. Now in an effort to protect this important piece of our national history
the Monitor became our nation's first national marine sanctuary on January 30th 1975. Today,
the ship lies in about 230 feet of water just 16 miles off of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. And
as you can see in this map, the ship is surrounded by hundreds, if not thousands of other shipwrecks.
Now in the 1990s, NOAA decided to recover some of the more iconic pieces of the
Monitor. And of course, the turret was the most iconic, and it came up in 2002.
Today, The Mariners' Museum and Park in Newport News, Virginia, is our official visitor center.
There you can learn about the Monitor's history and see many of the recovered artifacts.
In the Batten Conservation Lab, you can look through the windows to see the turret,
the Dahlgren guns, steam engine, and condenser, as they undergo conservation.
So as you saw in the previous map, there are hundreds of shipwrecks surrounding the Monitor off
the North Carolina coast. 90 of those are World War II shipwrecks that sank during the Battle of
the Atlantic. And with most of those, they sank in the first seven months of 1942. Now the area
represents a battlefield where over 1,600 men lost their lives defending freedom. Today,
these shipwrecks are historically significant, not only for the people of North Carolina, but to the
entire nation, as they are vital to understanding of World War II and our nation's maritime history.
Therefore, I used the Battle of the Atlantic to kind of set the stage for the
ROV curriculum. In the curriculum, students are briefly introduced to the Battle of the
Atlantic. They explore maritime archaeology, and they learn how maritime archaeologists use
technology, including ROVs in the search for an elusive German U-boat, the U-576
and the merchant ship Bluefields, which U-576 sank during a battle in July of 1942.
Now as you can see, and from this map, North Carolina was truly where the war came home
to America. These are all the World War II shipwrecks. Of the known locations of of the World
War II shipwrecks. Now of the 90 ships that sank during the Battle of the Atlantic off the North
Carolina coast, 78 were merchant ships, 8 were Allied vessels, and there were 4 German U-boats.
Now we knew where three of those U-boats were, but the U-576 was the one that we did not know where
it rested. So this map shows the known, shows the location of all those known
World War II shipwrecks. But there are many more shipwrecks whose locations are still a secret.
So why was North Carolina such a hot spot for German U-boats to patrol?
There were several reasons. On this map, you will see that the cold Labrador Current
runs south along the North Carolina coast, and the warm Gulf Stream runs north.
And they meet right off of Cape Hatteras. Ships like to travel in currents as it is more fuel
efficient and faster. So whether a ship was coming from the north or the south,
it would pass right by Cape Hatteras. And these shipping lanes were well known by the Germans.
So this information that I'm sharing now also helps archaeologists, as well as students,
to narrow the search area when they're looking for a shipwreck. They know that it probably was in one
of those shipping lanes. They know that it was there off the coast of North Carolina.
Now another factor is the Continental Shelf. Here in this map, you can see that the area
just off of North Carolina is where the shelf becomes the narrowest along the East Coast. This
gave U-boats the advantage of going deep to hide. And then when they heard ship traffic, they would
start toward the surface looking for their target, fire their torpedoes if they found a target,
and then go hide again. So since 2008, Monitor National Marine Sanctuary and our partners have
worked to document and survey this significant and historical collection of shipwrecks.
And through the years, maritime archaeologists have also found a few of the new ones. In the
curriculum, students are introduced to ROVs, AUVs, which are autonomous underwater vehicles,
towfish, and submersibles. And they learn how they are used in the marine industry and by NOAA.
They also learn about sonar technology.
And they will learn about a real-world scenario where maritime archaeologists conducted surveys.
And from the data that they collected in 2009, a target of interest was located. Archaeologists
thought that this might be the site of the U.S. Navy yard patrol boat YP-389. So to confirm it,
they used an ROV equipped with cameras, and they put it down on the site. And they were able to
confirm that it was indeed the YP-389 from the photomosaic that was created from all of that
data that was collected. Now after doing a lot of research and conferring with the U.S. Navy,
they did 100% confirm that it was the YP-389. The bent looking structures at the stern of the
ship helped to identify the vessel. And here's an image of the YP-389 as a fishing trawler, the
Cohasset, prior to its conversion as a yard patrol boat. And you can see the same structures there.
So one of the activities in the guide is to learn the parts of a ship.
Now as the maritime archaeologists continue to search for the U-576, they did additional
surveys both wide and narrow and this diagram on the left shows the angle look sonar or
ALS, which was used to survey about 138 square miles off the North Carolina coast.
However, the images were of lower resolution. And from the survey data,
archaeologists noted several anomalies and came up with a list of 47 total priority targets
with the hope that one of them is the U-576 and/or the Bluefields. To take a closer look,
they go to each of the target using an autonomous underwater vehicle
to get higher resolution images. These images help them to determine if the anomaly is a rock, a ledge,
or a shipwreck. And by surveying shipwrecks with photogrammetry, 3D images are also made of the
of the shipwrecks. We have one of the USS Monitor, along with several of the World War II shipwrecks.
You can go to our Sketchfab page and view them. Just click on a shipwreck to download it,
and then you can manipulate it and see it from all sides. Pretty cool. Finally in 2014, after six
years of searching, these sonar images identified the final resting place of both the U-576 and the
Bluefields. The two ships lie in about 700 feet of water and just 240 yards apart from each other.
And here you can see them in a little better detail.
In 2016, a two-person submersible went down to take the first look at the U-576.
And this is the Bluefields.
So now that we have looked at a real-world problem to set the stage for the curriculum,
let's take a look at how you might implement it into your classroom. First, I want to let you know
that you'll find all of our curricula, activities, and resources on our website. If you want to dive
a little deeper into STEM, both the maritime archaeology and the Battle of the Atlantic
guides are recommended, as they both go much more in depth. Also, on our website you will find the
first version of our ROV curriculum. I used it as a foundation for the one I'm sharing with you
today. Also, if you did not check yet, I uploaded the draft guide of this curriculum as a PDF to the
handout section of the webinar. I hope to have the guide through editing and on the web by the
middle of next month, but you're welcome to use the draft until then, as long as you remember
it is a draft. I'm sure you're going to find mistakes in it, because we haven't edited yet.
And also, we have the guide "Shipwreck of the Deep" available upon request. This guide was
developed in collaboration with Newport News Public Schools as a semester-long course for
middle school students. Just email me, and I'm happy to send you a copy of that PDF as well.
So let's get started. So "Shipwreck of the Deep - Envisioning Engineering" is a guide
using the real-world problem of searching for the German U-boat, U-576 to set the stage for
learning about engineering and ROVs. It's broken into six sections: Exploring NOAA,
Engineering ROVs, and building a ROV. However, all of our guides are written so
that each activity can stand alone allowing you to pick and choose the activities that
best fit the needs of your class. You can also combine them in many multiple ways.
Now the first section takes a look at NOAA and its six line offices. In another activity,
students will also explore Monitor National Marine Sanctuary and NOAA'S Maritime Heritage Program.
In the maritime archaeology section, students learn how maritime archaeology
is a fairly new disciplined study as they explore maritime archaeology
careers and develop a timeline to learn about its history.
Next, students are introduced to ROVs, AUVs, and towfish and how they are used
by NOAA. They use the real-world scenario that I showed earlier, learning about the
U.S. Navy yard patrol boat YP-389 and how its location was discovered in 2009.
Students also dive a little deeper into the hunt for the U-576. As they learn
about sonar technology, they learn how important research is to narrowing the
search area and the various tools used in searching for shipwrecks.
There is also an activity for students to learn the basic parts of the ship and some
nautical terminology. As was in the case for the YP-389, if you are searching for shipwrecks,
it's kind of helpful to know the parts. They help you to identify them. Now as students
explore and learn how sonar technology works, they actually simulate mapping an unknown ocean floor.
They also learn about the different methods used in mapping the ocean floor from lead line
approach to single beam to multi-beam.
And here you see an image showing a NOAA ship using a multi-beam sonar
to create a bathymetric map of the ocean floor. And on the right,
the ship is also towing a ROV with a side scan sonar to create an acoustic map.
And in this diagram, it shows a research vessel conducting multi-beam and side scan sonar,
as well as towing a surface-towed seismic sonar and receiver. Now, if you want to go
in more depth with sonar, I also in the guide, I give you links to the NOAA's Office of Ocean
Exploration, where you will find a ton of lesson plans and other resources,
including videos and images that will help to explain sonar in great detail.
Now once students learn about maritime heritage, ROVs, and sonar imaging, they are
ready to explore engineering. In this section, they will learn what an engineer is and does.
They will also learn about the engineering design process as they compare and contrast it to the
scientific method. They will come to understand that although the two processes are different,
they are similar, and that they are both an iterative process.
To get the students thinking like an engineer, they can start out by designing a simple aluminum
foil boat to hold a maximum payload. After their first initial design, build, and test,
they learn about density, buoyancy, and Archimedes' Principle. Then they get two more
opportunities to redesign their boat. The final design is their entry into the
competition to see who can engineer a design and build a boat to hold the most payload.
Throughout the guide, there are teaching suggestions that offer a variety of activities
that cover basic science principles that students need.
These can either be done by the teacher or they can be left for the students to do as experiments.
Now in this video, this is showing a simple way...I
didn't do it, hold on, okay, let me see if I can click over here, there we go,
it may take a minute, well if it doesn't play I can explain it. So this is a simple demonstration
of density you take both, take various sodas, both regular and diet, and have students predict which
ones will sink and which ones will float. Now you can have them predict on each can or you can have
them predict across the board. Usually, I like to have them predict on each can, because eventually
they'll start understanding that the diet ones float and the regular, sugar ones sink. So just
so that you can explain it to them, why this happens, there's about 16 teaspoons of sugar
in each regular soda where that adds a lot more density and mass to the to the can. But
with artificial sweetener, it only takes a little small amount, so therefore, the diet sodas will
float. You can also use the same demonstration to demonstrate Archimedes' Principle. Just
simply mark the water line before adding the sodas. Now to dive deeper into ROVs,
students explore their history. They learn how NOAA uses them today to explore the deep ocean.
They will also learn about their construction and how they might be equipped for research and
exploration. Next, students will discover how ROVs are so, or I'm sorry, why ROVs are so important
to ocean exploration. They will learn about the limitations of divers when diving in deep water.
They will do that through a variety of experiments for the properties of air.
So this will help students understand that the need for ROVs is immense because so much
of the ocean is unexplored, and so much of the ocean is a lot deeper than divers can go.
So I've got a couple of videos in here we'll see if they all play.
So this first one is to demonstrate that air takes up space, one of the properties that
that students need to know. You can connect any two bottles.
You can connect any two bottles together of any size with a tornado tube.
Fill one bottle with water, and then carefully flip it over.
The water remains at the top. Why? Because the bottom bottle is filled with air
and there is no room for the water to go. If you begin to shake the bottle, the air which
is lighter than water will displace and rise exchanging places with the same amount of water.
And to demonstrate that air has mass, you can use a digital scale or triple beam balance to
find the mass of a balloon. Next, you fill the balloon with air and find its mass.
There will be a slight increase in mass, showing that air has mass. You will explain that air
presses down 14.7 pounds per square inch on our bodies. I usually have students relate this to
a 5-pound bag of sugar, and then tell them that that's three of those bags that they're walking
around having it press down on every square inch of their body. But why don't we feel it?
Because our bodies press out the exact same amount. Now I use two demonstrations
to show that air exerts pressure. And I do this simply because students love them and so do I.
The first is the egg in the bottle. You show the students what you have to work with, a bottle,
and this is a milk bottle. You can still buy them at most grocery stores if you go to any of the
whole food type stores. But it does need to be a milk bottle because the opening needs to be large
enough. So you show them the bottle. You also show them that you have a wooden stir stick,
a lighter, and a peeled, hard-boiled egg. Now just as a note here, the smoother the egg when it's
peeled, the better. If you have a lot of holes in your egg it's going to do what my egg did
in this example. Then ask them how you're going to get the egg in the bottle. Now if they've seen it
I always tell them that they can't answer. So basically, the fire burns up the oxygen
in the bottle, and since the egg is sealing the bottle and no more air can get in, it creates a
semi-vacuum. And air pressure, 14.7 pounds per square inch, pushes the egg into the bottle.
Now when asked to explain, most will say that the egg was sucked into the bottle. But be sure to
help them understand that the egg was pushed into the bottle by air pressure. The other one that I
really love to do is called the 'Can Crusher.' You can put a can with a small amount of water
onto a hot plate and heat it until the steam is coming out. Use tongs, I use beaker tongs because
they have the rubber around to hold to grip it really well and they're wide. And then you're
going to flip the can over into a shallow pan of water. Now you're going to ask the students what
happened. And just basically, it's the water was heated, which in turn heated the air, as the air
heated, it rose and the cool air took its place. However, once you flip the can into the water, it
sealed the can and no more air could come in and exchange with the hot air. So hot air has fewer
molecules, and when the heated air was quickly cooled by the water, those air molecules condensed
and fell to the bottom, leaving a semi-vacuum in the can. And so air pressure crushed the can.
And here's a real live example. I always like to show students. So this
is what happens if you don't know your science. In this particular case,
workers had cleaned the tank car with a hot steam. They sealed all the openings
and left for the night. And as night temperatures dropped, it cooled the air inside the tank car.
And when they returned the next morning, just like the can, air pressure had crushed it.
So this helps students to understand that divers can't go as deep as we think they
can or would hope they could. At the surface of the earth, you have one atmosphere of pressure,
which is 14.7 psi. And when you dive into the ocean, pressure increases by one atmosphere
for every 33 feet. So if a diver goes about 100 feet, they have four atmospheres of pressure
pressing down on them. That's a lot of pressure pressing on a diver's
lungs. And so this is why they do need air. All divers need air to breathe underwater,
but they also need the air to keep their lungs expanded. However they are humans,
and they have limits to how deep they can dive. The deepest dive on record is 1,082 feet. I
couldn't believe that. That was phenomenal. And it was set by a man named Ahmed Gabr in 2014.
That's a lot of pressure, about 485 pounds per square inch. Now our technical divers, after
years of experience and training, can dive safely to about 350 feet. But our ocean is much deeper
than that. So how do we explore it? Not with divers. It's by using ROVs and sonar technology.
Now this is an activity to show what happens to the air in a diver's lungs. Give it a minute,
it's not playing. Okay, now it's playing. You can create these. They're called, I call them
'Cartesian Divers.' You can use any bottle with a cap and an eyedropper. Now you can fill the
eyedropper with colored water to make it a little easier for students to see what is happening.
The eyedropper has a small space at the top that is filled with air.
This is why it's buoyant. And when you squeeze the bottle, the air in the dropper gets compressed,
which allows more water to flow into the dropper. And the dropper then sinks.
When you release the bottle, the air expands and pushes the water back out and the dropper rises.
So now that they know why ROVs are needed, you want to get them excited and engaged in an
engineering activity. To get them excited about building that ROV, you can use this real simple
activity. It's called "Help We Can Use a Hand." They have a problem. They must retrieve tools that
are lying deep on the ocean floor. And they have an ROV, but the ROV doesn't have any way to pick
up those tools. So they must engineer an arm. And they must do it quickly, as the storm is coming.
This helps you to manage the time, about 15 minutes is what I give them. Now when I
do this with students, I have a big box with lots of stuff. I use skewers, clothespins, pens, tape,
clay, pipe cleaners, whatever you have in your junk drawer is pretty much what you can use.
The tools they have to retrieve are a mixture of nuts, bolts, nails, anything you have around in
your toolbox would probably work. I use a small plastic tub, as you can see there in the picture.
just one of those that you get lunch meat out of. But I have to remind the students all the time
that the tub represents the ocean, and the ocean does not have sides, because the students will all
want to slide their tools up the side of the ocean, inside of the the tub, instead of actually picking
them up. I also set a time limit, as I said, I usually limit this activity to about 15 minutes.
And when you're ready to start your students to design and engineer a ROV, you have many
options. I'm just here to tell you about a few of them, but there are lots of options out there.
So one is to purchase a Sea Perch kit. This is a program that the U.S. Navy began to help excite
students in engineering and STEM. A basic kit runs about $143, I checked that this week. However,
you build it once so it's kind of like a 'one and done'. You can use the ROV multiple times,
but you're not going to keep rebuilding it. The program also offers Sea Perch competitions held
annually that test the skills learned in a series of obstacles and real-world
inspired tasks. And another option is MATE,. A lot of our sanctuaries across our system do the
MATE program. It's a great way to help inspire and challenge students to learn and creatively
apply STEM to solve real-world problems, and to strengthen their critical thinking. And also,
collaboration and entrepreneurship and innovation. There are regional
competitions and the regional winners are then invited to the international competition.
But for our office, we decided to use ROV kits. Now on our kits, we have this PDF. I'm sorry, on our website,
we have this pdf called "ROV in a Bucket." It was actually created by a man named Doug Levin,
who was a NOAA employee at the time he created it.
And it walks you through the process of how to build a kit, using PVC, small electric motors,
stereo wire, and a battery. However, we ourselves have made many modifications to the kit,
as well as Mr. Levin has. And I'm happy to share those with you if you would like.
Just be sure to write down my email at the end of this presentation, and if you want me to send
those to you, I'll be happy to do that. If you use these kits, I suggest about six kits per
a class of about 24 to 25 students, as I recommend that they work in groups of three or four.
So, but before you have your students to begin the engineering and designing a ROV, you're going
to need to go over Newton's Laws of Motion and how they apply to designing a ROV. The first law
says that an object at rest will remain at rest and an object in motion will remain in motion
in a straight line with the same speed, unless the object is acted upon by an outside force and
an object with greater mass has more inertia and it takes more force to change its motion.
So here is one way to demonstrate Newton's First Law of Motion.
Not running, yep, okay. Simply place an index card on top of a cup and then put a penny in
the center of the card and cup. Use your index finger to quickly flick the card and watch how
the penny drops straight into the cup. To apply this principle, students need to understand that
their ROV is not going to move unless they have a force, which is provided by the three motors.
And that brings us to Newton's Second Law of Motion, which pertains to the behavior of objects,
for which all existing forces are not balanced. The second law states that the acceleration of
an object is dependent upon two variables, the net force acting upon the object and the mass of the
object. To apply this law to the ROV, students must realize that the ROV's motors are small
and limited in the amount of force that they can produce. Therefore, designing a six foot by six
foot ROV is out of the question, as it would have more mass than the force could move. And last,
is Newton's Third Law of Motion, which basically states that for every action there is an equal
and opposite reaction. And this law is applied to where they place their motors. They must make sure
that their ROV moves forward, backwards, and up and down. Now a lot of the motors do go forward
and backwards. They can reverse the propeller so they can go both ways. But still it's just a
good reminder that they need to place their motors so that they can place them up, place them down,
just so that they will know that they're going to have to determine which way they're going.
And this law is pretty simple to demonstrate with a 'Newton's Cradle'. These are relatively
inexpensive. And they do make large, wooden versions of them that are much
sturdier for students, if you want to to use them with students or as a group. So you know,
if you've done this before, if you pull out one of the balls and let it go, it's going to hit
the other balls, and make one ball go out on the other side. And if you do two balls, you're going
to get two balls on the other side. And if you do three balls, you're going to get three balls, etc.
So it's pretty simple to demonstrate Newton's Third Law of Motion.
All right, so once the students understand Newton's Laws of Motion and know how to apply
them, you introduce them to the parameters for building an ROV. Now one of the most important
parameters is that the ROV must be neutrally buoyant, which means, it must float below the
surface of the water and at least three inches from the bottom. I put in the guide how important
this three inches from the bottom is. It's because if they don't make it, if they don't have it float
off the bottom, the propellers are going to constantly be hitting the floor of your pool
or wherever you're in, and the propellers are going to come off. And it's a timely
fix, so make sure that they get it neutrally buoyant before they start experimenting with
driving it. Now other than that parameter, any parameters can be whatever you want. The rest
of them to be. Can be whatever you want. You can design an obstacle course for the ROV to maneuver
or you can use this simple, suggested competition called "Working Under Pressure."
As they begin, I also show them the various PVC pipes and the connectors and give them their kit
box with the three motors and the controllers. I don't let them get the PVC pipes and connectors
because they have to design it first. So with this simple competition, they're just going to
work as a team to build and design an ROV that's going to be able to pick up crabs, which are PVC,
pieces of PVC with little pipe cleaners on them. And they're going to have to move them
across the pool. And so therefore, they're going to have to also build an arm to go on their ROV.
So now it's time to start designing. I require that all teams complete a design,
drawn and labeled, and they also have to show their design to me or another adult,
if you have somebody assisting you. And when they explain their design, you may
note some very obvious flaws in the design. And if you do, don't tell them this is wrong,
just ask them lots of guiding questions to get them to rethink their design.
Once their design has been approved,
then they can gather the PVC pipes they need and the connectors and begin to build.
One lesson I learned the very first time I did this for students is do not show them an ROV
already built from the kit, because they will all make the exact same one. Now students are
very creative when given the opportunity, and you will see some very unique designs.
Once the ROV is built, then it is time to test it, redesign, it if necessary. Now there are
several options for pool time. This was at a local YMCA that let the students use the
pool for about two hours. We have also used our local aquatic center. Another option is
to ask your local hotel or motel, if you have one near, if you can use their pool.
At NSTA, the conference hotel actually allowed me to use their pool for my teacher workshop.
And this is a picture from a workshop I did in the Outer Banks. So I always say it can't hurt to ask.
And if it's for education, most places are pretty understanding. But another option is
to buy an above ground pool. It needs to be about 10 feet in diameter and at least 30 inches deep.
The pool costs around $300 to $400, but you can reuse it year after year. Also be sure to
consider where you will place that pool. If you're going to leave it out overnight with water in it,
then you will need to make sure that it can be locked up securely for safety reasons.
Also make sure that it's in an area where there's a water source, because you have to fill it.
And where it can be easily drained, preferably somewhere that needs to be watered. When I was
going into schools, I would also ask the local teachers to contact their fire departments.
If they have the time, fire departments will come out with their truck and fill it for you,
but a lot of times, they don't have the time. But it's just an option, so check it out
and see if they will. Another option is to ask the fire department if they have a pool
you can borrow. Some of them have pools for training purposes or for extra water. And I
had them bring out and fill one, one night when we were doing a STEM night up in Clark County.
But no matter what kind of pool you use, once those students test the ROV, they will most likely
need to redesign and make changes to their ROV. Now you can manage this part of the process in
a variety of ways. You can let everyone finish building, and then on a separate day, set the
pool up and allow two to three teams to test at a time, giving them about 10 to 15 minutes,
I do limit time or otherwise we could be there all day, and fix any problems they may have. Another
option is to set up the pool ahead of time and let each team go to the pool to test once they finish
building. And depending upon how you structure your time, this could be one class period or
about an hour total for all teams to test and redesign. Now as you can see this is not a pool
I recommend using. I found out of after about three uses the blow up ring got a hole in it.
And as I said, you will get all types of designs, some good, some bad, and some that surprise you.
The coolest one was a group of boys that designed in high school, that designed a
ROV that looked like a pyramid. It ran circles around the other ROVs, picked up all the crabs,
and won the competition. Unfortunately, I did not have a camera with me and my cell
phone was in the car, and I didn't get a picture of it, but it was an awesome one.
And have fun with the competition with "Working Under Pressure." In this activity they need to
rescue those baby crabs. So their arms must be able to pick up the crabs. There are two different
sizes of PVC straight connectors that I use to make the crabs. A small one and a big one. There
is also a suggested point, list of points awarded for different criteria. I always awarded one point
if they could touch the crab, but it was only one time given, so they didn't keep going back
and forth touching the same crab, or trying to go over and touch another crab. So they got one point
for being able to move their ROV and touch a crab. Three points if they could pick up a large crab.
Four points if they could pick up a small crab. And an additional three points for every crab
that they moved from one side to the other. Now as I said earlier, all of our curricular,
activities, and other educational resources are on our website under the "Learn" tab. Now under
the "Visit" tab you will also find 11 videos and several oral histories that showcase the unique
and beautiful maritime heritage of the Outer Banks. Now as your students explore our story map,
there's also an activity that correlates with each video and oral history.
And you definitely should check out our shipwreck webpage. Just click on the shipwreck tab and there
you will find over 50 shipwrecks, each with their own webpage, telling the ship's history,
how it sank, and what it is like today. You will see beautiful underwater images,
along with sonar and 3D images, as well as videos and more. And you definitely, and if you are not
on your on our listserv, I invite you to sign up. We even have a specific email list serve
just for teachers. Go to our "News" section of the website and click on the box for teachers.
And of course Mark's going to remind you, but be sure you follow us on social media.
Mark does a great job with all of our social media posts. A lot of historical posts,
a lot of information that it's kind of the unknown information, that goes up on social media. So
you don't have to dig through our website to learn everything. So be sure you follow us.
And last but not least, that is my contact information.
And thank you so much for your time today. And Mark, I am going to turn it over to you
for any possible questions. [Mark Losavio] All right, yes, now is the time to type in your
questions into the question box. While you guys are typing in those questions, I have one myself.
I was wondering if you've ever tested the ROVs in like a natural setting, like taking it to a river,
to the beach or something like that? [Shannon Ricles] Yes, we have. We did actually use them
on the Albemarle Sound when we were down in the Outer Banks. We put them down in the sound,
and that's a great option to do. The only thing that I sometimes caution people to
not put them in. When you don't put them in clear water, they, you can't see what they're doing,
and they can get tangled. They can get lost. So I always like to start the competitions in
clear water so we can see what's happening. If they lose a propeller, I can find it.
We can get it out of the pool. But, if once they're proficient, and you've got some great
ROVs, then yes, absolutely go do your thing. And we've also done ROVs when we had a marine
biologist working for us. She actually put sensors on the ROV so they could go test water quality
in the sound. [Mark Losavio] Very cool. All right. So here's a question, do you have any
plans for any in-person workshops regarding this? [Shannon Ricles] That's a great question. Yes,
we hope to be able to be back in person. We still have not got the clearance from NOAA to be able
to do in-person events. We're hoping that maybe sometimes this fall in September I will be able
to be back out at festivals and events. And I can be back in classrooms and doing teacher workshops.
But yes, I've done lots of teacher workshops with the ROVs. I've gone into schools and
helped teachers set up programs, and we hope to be back going strong real soon. We do limit ourselves
to pretty much, you know within about a 250 mile radius just simply because of travel. I can't,
I would love to go to California or Hawaii, if you want to pay my way, I'm happy to go. [laughing]
[Mark Losavio] Same here. [Shannon Ricles] Mark will come with me. [Mark Losavio]
What is your progression of education or I guess, your like plan for teaching the
students how to pilot the ROVs. [Shannon Ricles] That comes pretty naturally,
because most of the kids do video games. They catch on very quickly. I've never
had to explain how to do it. I usually show them the controller, so I will tell them,
the controller that I used had three switches, it was a black box, had three switches.
So I would show them, I would tell them to put the ROV into the water and then try the first switch
and see which way their ROV goes. Try the second switch, see which way it goes, and then the third.
They can also try the switches out to just see which motors which, before they even put their ROV
in the water. And then once they kind of get the feel of it, it takes about two minutes, and those
kids have the feel of it, they are driving it all over the place. The biggest thing with students is
getting them to make it neutrally buoyant. That is the biggest problem beyond any other problem.
Once they get it neutrally buoyant, and they can move it, they have no problem with that. And I do
have to tell you a little secret that girls, who play video games, are usually the better
pilots. They have more patience is what I've found. Boys get very frustrated, but that's just a
generalization. I don't mean anything by it, but I just have found that to be a truth in what I have
seen. So it does take a little bit of patience, so for boys or girls, whoever has the most patience,
is probably going to be the better driver. [Mark Losavio] All right. How long do you
give the students to build the ROVs. [Shannon Ricles] That usually takes about a class period,
maybe about 50 to 60 minutes. It'll really depend upon your group. If you've done all of the lead
up to it, the actual building part shouldn't take long. They should be able to draw a design
come up with something in their head, show it to you, go collect their pieces, and build. All of
that usually within about a 50-minute time period. It goes a lot faster than you think it would.
There are some who take a little longer, but for the most part, they already know know what they're
doing. And there's a lot of groups that will want to build without designing because they just have
that visual acuity, and they're just able to say 'oh, I'm doing this, this, this, and this', and
they don't want to do the design. But I still make them go back and draw a design. And I tried them
and that's why I started limiting that they could not go get their ROV pieces until they showed me
the design. So I kind of guard the buckets of ROV pieces and wait for them to show me that.
Because you do have students that are very good at just being able to visually imagine it, and they
do it, and that's great, but they also need to learn how to put it down on paper.
[Mark Losavio] Nice. Have we ever collaborated with other sanctuaries in regards to working on ROVs like
Grey's Reef or Thunder Bay. [Shannon Ricles] We have not. Several of the sanctuaries do
MATE and they do competitions. And we have talked about collaborating with
other sanctuaries and that would be something I would really love to do. I know that now that
Mallows Bay is a sister sanctuary, we do plan on doing some things with Mallows Bay. So we
do have plans for that. And that's up the road in Maryland, if you don't know where it's located at.
It's on the Potomac River up there near DC. So yes, hopefully, we will be able to do more.
[Mark Losavio] So you mentioned earlier putting like sensors to take water quality on the ROVS.
Have you thought of putting a camera on one? [Shannon Ricles] Yes, you can put a camera
on them. GoPro cameras are really good, they work well. You can do that. We didn't do it
ourselves, but I have worked with another ROV educator with Nauticus, who has done that.
We didn't have GoPro cameras, so we just, that's the only thing, that's reason why we didn't do it.
[Mark Losavio] Here's one on the design of the ROVs. It looks like there are holes drilled in
the PVC to allow them to fill with water and mitigate the buoyancy. Does the placement of the
holes in the PVC pipe affect the movement or time to fill? [Shannon Ricles] No, I haven't found that
to be true. Every piece, they're about six inch piece of PVC pipes, and I think we've got two or
three holes drilled in them. I don't have one in front of me, but it's just mostly so that they can
be able to fill. Once you drop that ROV into the water, it's heavy enough that it's going to begin
to sink and then you're going to see bubbles coming up. And so all the pipes are filling.
In the pictures that you see that I've shared, you probably see a large PVC tube-like structure. We
used to use those. We called those buoyancy tubes or buoyancy sleeves. And we used to use those to
help balance the buoyancy to get it neutrally buoyant. But now we use noodles. We just go
and buy noodles and we cut them down in half, and then we cut them into pieces. And actually I bring
a whole noodle cut in half, and I let the kids cut them apart and determine what size they need.
For me, noodles were inexpensive enough that that let them not have to use pre-fabricated pieces,
but use pieces that they could develop. But I also always brought that bucket full of cut noodles,
so they could just pick and choose from there, if they wanted. We've tried using
the pipe insulation stuff that you wrap around your pipes, that brown insulation pipe thing.
It didn't work well, but noodles work really well. But I do also recommend that you have
a little bit of duct tape on hand, because sometimes those noodles will come right off,
and so they just need to be taped on to make it a little more secure.
[Mark Losavio] Real quick. I think you did mention this but if you could just remind us what your
like target age range is for these activities. [Shannon Ricles] Sure, it's 6th grade to 12th
grade, but I've done it with with a lot lower. I've done it with homeschoolers down to 3rd grade,
that was a little more challenging than I would like, but it worked. And I have done it with
a lot of 5th grade classes. It really depends upon the class, if the teacher has students that
she thinks or he thinks that will do well and be able to handle it then, 5th grade is fine.
I've done it with a lot of adults. I've done a lot of teacher workshops, so I've
done a lot of adults who have done this, and they have just as much fun with it as the kids do.
But I would say your target age is anywhere from 6th grade to high school. One of the schools
that I worked with was out in Virginia Beach, and they are the the technology center out there. And
that was a fabulous program that we did with them. They had three classes, one was the engineering
class, where they would do the CAD drawing. The other was I don't know what you would call it, but
to me it was kind of like a shop class, where they would cut the pipes and and do all the mechanical
cutting up and stuff. And then the other class was like the digital representation. So they would do
all the cool web stuff. So we would have the class design, the CAD class would design the ROVs and
then, this was high school of course, they would design the ROVs and then they would give their
specs to the other class, who would cut everything up and build the motors. And then we would
let the digital people represent it all. It was great. And I would work with them, and this would
probably be over a couple of weeks. But it was a great program. We did that for many years.
Very successful. [Mark Losavio] I'll be honest, I kind of want to build one now.
[Shannon Ricles] Well come on. [Mark Losavio] What is the approximate cost for like I guess building an ROV?
[Shannon Ricles] For the kits. I forgot to mention that. Thank you for asking that question.
When we first started building the kits, they were probably, to buy all of the supplies was about
$150. They probably have gone up a little more now, especially with the price of everything going
up. But I would say probably anticipate at least about two hundred dollars for all of the supplies
to build it, that is if you have the knowledge, or if you know somebody that has the knowledge,
on how to wire the motors, that is great. And if you don't like me, I paid somebody to do that.
It was actually a teacher's husband who was an electrical engineer. He tried to do it for me
for free, but I paid him, and it was well worth it, because I had no knowledge of how to do it.
So it just depends if you have somebody who can do the wiring for you, then that's
no cost. But if you're like me and you need to pay somebody, I think I paid him $400
to do six kits for me. So I say it would probably run somewhere around $200 to $250 for per kit.
But these kits are reusable year after year after year. The only things you really need to replace
on these kits are the propellers. Sometimes they fall off, they get broken, the screws
get stripped. Sometimes the motors quit working, but you can troubleshoot most of that. And then
every now and then, the wiring goes bad because of the way the kids handle it.
Another big thing that I highly recommend when you're having kids handle the ROVs,
that they pick them up and handle them carefully. They don't pick them up by the wire. They don't
pick them up by the motor. They pick them up by the PVC pipe, because pulling them up on the
tether, you know that every ROV has a tether, and they'd like to pull them up by that tether.
And when they do that, they're ruining the wire and they're going to break those connections.
So the better they take care of them, the less problems you're going to have and less
troubleshooting you'll have down the road. [Mark Losavio] Right. Okay, so we have time for one more
question, and I really like this one. Do you, can you recommend like a follow-up lesson program
to go after this ROV, like underwater sensing methods or measuring activities.
[Shannon Ricles] That's a good question. I never thought about how to follow this up. I've always
thought of it as a unit or as a piece of a unit. That's a really good question. I don't know if
I can come up with anything off the top of my head. I will tell you that in our maritime
archaeology guide, that is totally STEM, it's taking a look at maritime archaeology and then
it takes a look at all the tools of the trade. It also looks at how to search and find a shipwreck.
So it's got things in there, like how to do research and and how to plot coordinates. So
there's lots of different things in there. And this and so the ROV piece is just one piece of
that bigger picture. Another thing that I mentioned is "Shipwreck of the Deep," that
course that we created for Crittenden Middle School in Newport News Schools.
That one is another unit that not the first half of it is all about finding the shipwreck,
so the problem is or the scenario is that they're looking for the U-576, but they found this other
fictitious shipwreck. And they have to do a lot of research on the shipwreck to figure out if it's
historical or not historical. They take ROVs that go down and they look at it. And then they finally
did want to also look at the environmental issues surrounding the shipwreck. So they start looking
at the water quality. They look at what's living on it. They start doing research on oysters,
because they're thinking about making an oyster reef. So after you do the ROVs, there's all kinds
of different directions that you can go, just depends upon what you want to do as a class.
But I'm going to give that one some more thought. Maybe I can come up with something a little better
answer than that. [Mark Losavio] All right, thank you very much for answering all of our questions.
We have actually a lot of questions, so for those of you who did not get your questions answered,
sit tight. Because I will help you with that in just a moment. But if you haven't downloaded
Shannon's bio in the chat box, try to do so now. And if you can't, most of the information will
be on our website. In the bio, you'll find various links to learn more about the free
educational materials available on our website. And if I didn't get to your question today,
because we had a ton of really great questions, or if you think of any more good ones, you can send
them directly to Shannon here at this website. And that's her email listed on the screen here.
Once we get this video captioned and processed, a recording of this presentation will be made
available on the sanctuaries' webinar archive page found at the URL listed here at the top.
In addition to this location, the webinar will also be archived on Monitor National
Marine Sanctuary's website. When you go, you can click on the multimedia section in the toolbar
to access the webinar box. You will also find future webinars in that same section, and we've
got a lot of great ones coming up so make sure to check often. And don't worry, all this information
will be sent to you in a follow-up email once the recording has been processed. Speaking of which,
our next webinar is next Tuesday, July 20th. Join Lori Sanderlin and Katie Menne at the
North Carolina Maritime Museum in Southport, as they tell how their small museum took on the big
topic of diversity and inclusion. Learn about how this tiny staff of three took on the huge
task of adapting programs creating an ASL tour and making physical alterations to create a more
welcoming and inclusive experience for individuals and families with sensory sensitivities or special
needs. Besides that, we have plenty of other great webinars coming up in the coming year
so make sure to check out these and register for them when they show up in your email box.
If you did like this webinar, there's more in the National Marine Sanctuaries System. In fact,
tonight in about an hour there is a webinar about the long-term tagging study of the green
sea turtle, the wealth of information that it has revealed, and how they plan to research the
turtle's resilience to climate change in Hawaii. So if that's something that interests you,
then I guess sit tight, because that'll be on soon. And of course, like Shannon said,
please follow us on social media. We actually, she mentioned earlier in her presentation,
that the Bluefields and the U-576 had an encounter. And that actually happened today
in 1942. So you can read all about that on our Facebook page and our Twitter. And lastly,
as you exit the webinar there is a short survey for formal and informal educators. If you are
an educator, NOAA would really appreciate it if you could just take a minute or two of your time
and complete this survey. Your answers will really help us develop future webinars to
meet your needs. Your participation is voluntary and your answers will be completely anonymous.
And once again, we'd like to thank Shannon for her fantastic presentation and all the hard work
she does for us and everybody. And thank you for taking the time to join us today. That concludes
the presentation, and I will now end the webinar. [Shannon Ricles] Thank you Mark. Bye everyone.