Video: Rankin Elementary Students Create Remote Operational Vehicles

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TUPELO, Miss. (WCBI) — Fourth graders at one Tupelo school spent part of their day designing, making and operating underwater robots. It’s all part of an outreach program to teach youngsters about the ocean, conservation and robotics.

These fourth graders at Rankin Elementary School have been studying all about the ocean and how remote operational vehicles, or ROVs, help gather information from the underwater universe.

Now, they get to build their own underwater robot.

Michelle Edwards is with the National Institute for Undersea Science and Technology. NIUST is a partnership between the University of Mississippi and the University of Southern Mississippi that uses advanced technologies to study the deep sea.

“We have vehicles that map the ocean floor,” Edwards said. “So, what they are actually doing is building a replica of those on a very small scale.”

Students are split into teams of five, and given the tools, such as pvc pipe, thrusters and other items to design a small underwater robot.

Once the frame was built, thrusters were attached, and batteries connected.

Students then took their ROVs outside to to tubs of water to see how their designs worked.

“They love it,” Edwards said. “They absolutely love it, and they’re very excited and that’s the fun part for us, because we get to see the kids really light up.”

Fourth graders say there were some challenges.

“It was easy and hard,” Fourth grader Cooper Waters said. “We couldn’t figure out where we wanted to put the motors, but in the end we found out where we wanted to put them.”

Organizers say the mini camp promotes teamwork, and allows the students to have fun learning real world applications for science and technology.

Similar workshops will be held for fourth grade classes at all Tupelo public schools.