Local Students Build ROVs at Infinity Science Center

Mankind knows more about the moon than we do our own oceans, but hundreds of local kids learned about and built their own remotely operated underwater explorers.

About 70% of the Earth’s surface is underwater, but we’ve only explored about 5% of the ocean’s depths. That’s something the Marine Underwater Discovery Exploration One, or Mud-E1, program is trying to correct. Hadyn Miller, a 4th grader at West Hancock Elementary, says, "We are building robots and going to drive them underwater."

Mud-E1 is sponsored by the National Institute for Undersea Science and Technology (N.I.U.S.T.), and is a collaboration between the University of Mississippi and the University of Southern Mississippi. They hope to make science a priority for kids. Michelle Edwards, Assistant to the Director of N.I.U.S.T., says, "It introduces kids to a lot of different aspects of science. This is a S.T.E.M. related activity. That’s science, technology, engineering, and math."

Tuesday’s 4th grade explorers designed, built, and launched their own remote submarines, getting their feet wet with hands on experience. Miller also says, "It’s fun! You can do a bunch of experiments and make different chemicals and how to build stuff like robots."

The children had full control over their projects, with minimal adult supervision. Edwards also says, "This particular project we do with them there is no right and wrong design, it’s really all about sparking their imagination and science is all about trial and error."

Scientists use these remotely operated vehicles to boldly go where mankind can’t go yet. That includes the bottom of the ocean and of course, space. John Wilson, Executive Director of the Infinity Science Center, says, "Here at Infinity, we try to expose kids to exploration from the far reaches of the universe to the depths of the ocean here on our own planet."

Infinity will keep trying to light the spark of imagination in today’s kids, who will become tomorrow’s explorers.