Neptune 3D Aquabots - USA Tour 2022

09/06/2022

Our last day together as a team we were met again by Michele (DC local) who took us to The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. It was amazing and a huge highlight of our trip. This museum displays thousands of aviation and space artifacts, including the Space Shuttle Discovery and the BlackBird spy plane. Seeing all the incredible planes, helicopters and capsules that had gone into space was eye opening. The Discovery Shuttle is huge. We also got to try flying planes in a simulator which was awesome – it put us upside down while chasing an enemy plane trying to shoot it down. There are so many planes on display there its hard to single out one but we both think the blackbird was awesome along with the shuttle.

After the Museum Michele very kindly had lunch ready for us including providing some American snacks like Twizzlers and Reeses and then took us for a tour of the capital building. This building has only just opened after they had riots here, so we were lucky to get tickets (free). We all (including the dads) found the film at the start really interesting as it showed how democracy in the United States worked. Then we had a tour of the working and former congress rooms and committee rooms. We also saw where George Washington was going to be buried but died before it finished so was buried at his home.

After this we relaxed at home then were taken to the Dubliner Restaurant/pub in downtown DC. Michele and John knew the owner Danny and they all wanted to celebrate our results with us so we all ate lots on our final night together as a team. Danny also gave us free dessert so if anyone is in DC please go see Danny at the Dubliner and say we sent you!

Finally – the next morning Alex and his dad David left in an Uber – in writing this they are possibly just landing in Auckland. We do know they got safely to the last plane with 7mins to spare!

This has been an awesome journey and we can’t thank everyone enough.

I (Ezra) spend last night at my cousin’s house in Pennsylvania where he goes to university playing soccer and now get to see a little more DC, and check out NY,

Alex and Ezra

08/06/2022

Monday, we went to the International Spy Museum, our parents had shown this to us before we left NZ and it was the only place, we had specifically booked tickets for. It was amazing. We all got undercover missions and had to act as spy’s throughout the museum. We learned a lot about various spy things, with lots of things on display including where and how spy’s hide cameras and other things including in fake poo! The International Spy Museum was the most interactive museum we have ever seen, and we loved it. We recommend everyone goes there.

Then we walked to across the mall, ate burgers, hotdogs and pizza from another food truck and went to the Natural History Museum. This had so many cool things including dinosaur bones, full replica dinosaurs and we learned a lot about changes in sea and mammals over thousands of years. We felt like we had been walking for days by now so went home late afternoon for a rest.

We then went to celebrate our result at a local restaurant. The food was huge, and Alex ordered chicken, but didn’t realise an actual full chicken including head and feet. Ezra’s dad Bruce ate the head and Alex tried to eat the feet, and got a bit put off when he thought he ate the heart.

Home not too late ready for another big day tomorrow where we hopefully get to see the space shuttle.

06/06/2022

Sunday – post competition. We woke up a little late but just in time before breakfast finished after a late night with our friend from Rotorua Primary School.

We then packed up and went into Washing DC central to our next hotel. We were a bit surprised how some of the area looked a little run down on the way into the city. We checked into our hotel and then used the subway to see the monuments.

They are amazing – we saw the White House, Washington Monument, WW2 Fountain, The Lincoln Monument and then pondered upon the reflection upon the pond of reflection pond, reflecting upon our reflection upon the pond. We ate hot dogs, drank shaved iced from one of so many food trucks and almost melted in the heat.

That evening we were picked up by some amazing local Washington DC locals that Ezra’s Dad (Bruce) had contacted, John and Michelle. John was born in NZ and Michelle in DC. They took us to the NZ Embassy and then out to dinner. The hamburgers were HUGE.

After dinner they took us on a tour of the monuments at night – the were so amazing. We saw more that we hadn’t seen during the day including the Marine Corps War Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial, and the Korean war memorial. We learned a lot and were a little affected by the number of deaths and missing people mentioned on them.

Michelle and John are amazing people and we can’t thank them enough – Michele has also arranged tickets to the Capital Building for us on Tuesday!

We finally got home close to midnight and fell into our beds!

06/06/2022

We are stoked!! 4th Overall Open class!!

After overnight calculations the final results for the 2022 Seaperch Aqubot International Championships held at University of Maryland have been announced.

Our results for Neptune 3D:
12th in Engineering Design
4th in Team Video
5th in Water Mission
5th fastest in Obstacle Course.
Overall Result 4th Overall - Open Class

To say were happy is an understatement, our goal was top 5 in middle school closed grade - to be in the open grade competing against the best Aquabot high school students in USA and around the world and come 4th overall is just beyond words.

Thank you again for all the support from family, school, friends and strangers to help us not only strive for, but achieve our goals.

Rocket Lab Canary Data Solutions Ltd Jaycar Electronics Mindkits Rotary International Hobsonville School Newstalk ZB Seven Sharp Mike Hosking Breakfast

We will update you on our adventures yesterday and today in another post soon!

05/06/2022

Yesterday was competition day. (Long Post) Both of us were nervously excited and unsure of how it would all go. After breakfast we checked out the Aquatic Center. Checked in to the event and had a good look around. There were some amazing Aquabots of all different designs.

Some had lights, some had extra motors to open and close claws. We went back and got our Aquabot and put it on display too. We had so many people come up asking questions, saying how cool it looked etc. It was awesome to talk about what we had made and learn from others to; everyone was stoked to have us here from New Zealand.

We weren’t competing until later in the day, so we headed for lunch then took our Aquabot to compliance. This is where we found out that they had removed the ‘closed class’. All a little confusing but in short it meant we were competing in the open class due to our 3D printed triangle frame. Open class is no budget (unlike our $20 budget) and no restrictions and competing against mostly high school students in their graduating year (age 16-18).

We went into the pool area. Alot more nervous now and a little shaken by the changes. It was pretty cool to have the NZ Flag and people texting our dads saying they were watching live and looking for us.

Our 1st event was the mission course. We had some difficulty with the different sized batteries from our practices and the floating platform was a 1st for us which made it really difficult swaying when we touched it with our Aquabot. Unfortunately, we lost a lot of time on the batteries and didn’t manage to finish the course in the time allowed, but know we were one of many in this situation.

The obstacle course was also different with hoops turned at right angles and different from home. We got stuck in our 1st run and a diver needed to help. But in the end the diver also needed help. We did our best to stay calm despite the challenges and our 2nd run was an awesome 1:02 min – a great time.

After this we were a bit down as we both had higher standards for ourselves and expected to do better on the mission. However, at prize giving we were stoked when it was announced that out of 142 teams attending from around USA and the world, we were voted recipients of the 2022 Aquabots Sportsmanship Award.

We went out with our Rotorua Primary School friends to Board and Brew and played games finally getting to sleep after midnight so posted today. Thank you everyone for your support, before, during and after this competition we really appreciate it.

Alex and Ezra

05/06/2022

It's been a huge day here, the boys are tired so we are giving them the night off, but they will provide a competition blog post tomorrow am our time. We don't actually know full results yet, but meanwhile we did manage to capture a little of the prizegiving... Worth watching...😊

Super proud of these boys and we are all super humble for all the support both big and small from everyone at home.

Hobsonville School House of Travel Rocket Lab Jaycar Electronics Canary Data Solutions Ltd Mindkits Nikki Kaye Seven Sharp Newstalk ZB and all the friends and family and strangers who helped us show them who Kiwi's are on the world stage.

04/06/2022

Going through compliance. Everything great 👍. Although now in open class as there is no closed class due to their awesome 3D printed triangle supporting the frame. Boys a little nervous now.. walking out to pool competitionarea around 7:15 NZT (Bruce)

04/06/2022

Competition time..heading to check in..

04/06/2022

Today we checked out of the hotel ready to move onto University of Maryland Dorms.

We rode the Metro Train into Washington DC and walked to the National Museum of American History. DC is really bit, busy but beautiful.

In the National Museum the highlights were the entire electricity, steam generations, steam engine areas and all the interactive parts through the museum. It was too big for us to see it all!

Next, we had a personal tour by the Director of Maryland Robotics Center (https://robotics.umd.edu/) Derek Paley. We found out he has family in Tauranga and the South Island. We did the tour with our new friends from Rotorua Primary. Thanks to Layla Waimarie Rask for letting us join them.

We looked at Robotic labs. In the 1st lab we saw 2 types of drones that they had been using to compete in a robotics challenge. In the 2nd lab we saw Baxtor the Red Robot and manipulators where they were designing different Effectors for the hands of the robot.
After this we went to the new Lab where we were lucky to see Spot 2. It is a robotic dog from Boston Dynamics. It is controlled by a Nintendo switch type tablet. It could run, walk, bow, jump, hop, dance and follow RFID Tags (look it up!). Derek was showing us Spot 2’s push resistance and unfortunately, he (spot not Derek) fell over. At least we then got to see the self-righting program for the first time, as did Derek!

The last lab was the Neutral Buoyancy Research Facility (space systems lab). This had a pool that was 8m deep and 367,000 gallons of water! It is used for lots of underwater and space research including testing space suits.

We are now in the dorms and ate in the dining halls with lots of other teams from around America and the world. There is as much food as we can eat, we all ate too much, and in the words of Alex “I’m stuffed!”

Competition day tomorrow, we are nervously excited…

(Check out the comments for videos of Spot 2 in action and a few others from the day)

03/06/2022

Today we needed to get another battery as ours was taken by security at Auckland Airport. It was strange taking a bus on the other side of the road. The Dads liked Home Depot but we were tired from walking in the heat and were hungry, so we found a battery and went looking for food.

We were then able to practice in the pool for the rest of the morning. We were both happy with the new 3D printed hooks (thanks Mindkits) and the Aquabot was going well in the pool.

In the afternoon we walked to the College Park Aviation Museum, which is the longest continuously operating airport (1909 until today). We learned that the Wright brothers used the airport to develop and test planes with the US Army, that Berliner Helicopter on display (mix of a plane and helicopter) was tested there and that Emile Berliner also invented records.

Walking home we went past some amazing fraternity houses, our dads asked which one we were going to go into. we all thought the Δ Δ Δ house looked cool.- (who can guess its name)

Then out of nowhere we got hit by a huge monsoon storm that soaked us and we got a major warning on our phones not to travel. So, we stayed in the hotel to swim and then eat pizza.

Tomorrow we move into the University of Maryland and meet the other teams competing… that is all for today..

02/06/2022

I think you can join us on the day virtually

Subject: 2022 SeaPerch International Challenge Virtual Participation Information

 Good afternoon!

We are thrilled to welcome you to the 2022 SeaPerch International Challenge!

Please find information for virtual participation for teams and spectators below:

On Saturday, June 4th, please visit www.seaperch.org for a full schedule of events and access to our live pool webcast!

Please sign up to watch teams’ presentations here:
Presentation Webinar – Registration required - https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0vdO6urj8tHtUYeRPQ1ft7MBRXyIS9f4BK

Please let me know if you have any questions. We look forward to “seeing” you!

Join student teams from across the globe as they present on their underwater ROVs at the 2022 International SeaPerch Challenge held at the University of Maryland. Join the RoboNation Mailing List: https://robonation.org/mailing-list Please Review our Privacy Policy: https://robonation.org/privacy-po...

02/06/2022

Huge day today. Today we flew AKLD - SYD-San Francisco -Washington DC and drove to of Maryland. 3am start and at hotel after 34hrs of travelling. The best way to describe our travel was hurry up and wait with waiting in security lines, transfer lines and then racing to gates, to then wait on the plane. Buzz House of Travel gave our dads really clear instructions around paperwork and connecting flights that they didn't get wrong even if they looked confused at times. - thanks Buzz.

Best parts of the day for us: travelling here, watching lots of movies, drinking lots on the plane and eating and playing games at Board and Brew Games that our teacher Mr Hill told us about. Alex's dad David said he enjoyed the games and Ezra's dad Bruce said he was just pleased we all got here in once piece.

We are done for the day and can't wait to get the Aquabot in the pool tomorrow!

Hobsonville School
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