Hoffman Estates High students' underwater vehicle going to Canada to compete

Students at Hoffman Estates High School saw months of hard work pay off when they earned first place at an underwater remotely operated vehicle competition at the Shedd Aquarium.

The Hawks Engineering Team won the Marine Advanced Technology Education Center Midwest Regional ROV Competition held at the Shedd Aquarium. The team consists of juniors Dillon Vadgama and Grace Wilkins, sophomore Miraj Shah, and seniors Laura Turf and Thomas Schaefer.

The team's underwater ROV received first place in the Ranger category and the opportunity to compete at the international level June 25-27 at Memorial University and the Institute for Ocean Technology in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.

This is the first year the high school has entered the competition, going up against 12 teams in its category. Hawks Engineering started building the ROV in September. Named "Seahawk," it will compete this month in Canada.

"When we first got the challenge, we thought this could be easy, but then we got the task list and it was very daunting," Wilkins said. "It was this giant list of tasks we needed to complete. We had no experience and no idea what we were doing exactly. We had to figure out how to make this happen."

The competition included a sales presentation, marketing poster, and completion of 20 tasks by their underwater ROV over the course of three different missions. Several components of the team's ROV and presentation earned praise from other teams and judges.

The Hawk's ROV was one of four - including two by collegiate teams - made from 3-D printed materials from local companies and sponsors instead of the traditional PVC piping.

This year's competition theme was Science and Industry in the Arctic. Vadgama built an Android app that allowed the ROV to be controlled wirelessly, as well as providing video feedback to a tablet. Vadgama said the ROV had to navigate conditions humans cannot.

"In real life, there are different facilities that underwater divers can't get their hands to," Vadgama said. "For example, divers can't go into freezing temperatures to fix a pipeline. That is what our robot is designed to do - to go into environments that people cannot go into and solve problems that are happening there."

The team's sponsor, teacher Wayne Oras, said he was impressed with the dedication and commitment the students showed. And students were able to see a number of things they needed to improve to compete at the next level, he said.

"The best part about this is getting engineering students out of the classroom and applying their skills to real-life problems," Oras said. "This competition is put on by MATE and is supported by companies that do this sort of thing for real. In engineering classes, we teach the design process and in class we have very limited availability to duplicate a real-life situation where they have been working six or seven months and have to go back and start some things from scratch again."