SeaGlide Summer Camp ends swimmingly

Lap swimmers at the Freedom Aquatic and Fitness Center on George Mason University's Science and Technology Campus shared the pool with some unusual visitors on Friday, July 25, as more than a dozen high school students tested their underwater gliders on the final day of the SeaGlide Summer Camp.

The camp is supported by the National Science Foundation grant (NSF), BRITE Relaunch: Persistent and Accessible Maritime Monitoring (PAMM), which promotes STEM outreach activities in maritime robotics. College of Engineering and Computing Professor Leigh McCue started the camp a few years ago to help get high schoolers excited about STEM.

At the camp, students built an untethered underwater glider from a kit designed by RoboNation. The kit provides supplies and directions, but students can innovate and experiment with different designs. The kit includes a sports water bottle that forms the hull of the glider with material for wings that extend from the sides. The glider moves by changing its buoyancy, taking in or expelling water. making it sink and rise. As the glider travels up and down, its “wings” generate lift, which propels the glider forward. Different colored lights indicate the glider’s status as it rises, falls, and moves forward.

Graduate research assistant Vanessa Barth who works in McCue’s lab at the Potomac Science Center on fundamental research in maritime robotics supported by the NSF grant helped McCue coordinate and manage the camp activities. She said the students experimented through trial and error using pieces of a pool noodle or adding weights to achieve neutral buoyance with their gliders.

In the past, campers tested the devices in a four-foot-deep tank at George Mason’s Innovation Drive facilities, but this year McCue wanted to try something different, so she contacted the team at the Freedom Aquatic and Fitness Center, and they agreed. “I want to be sure to give a shout-out to them. They couldn’t have been more helpful and accommodating,” said McCue.

In the pool, the gliders could move more freely, even if they didn’t always stay within the lane lines. Sometimes they drifted into the lanes of recreational swimmers, but McCue said everybody was understanding. Some even stopped to watch and ask questions. Though the grant ends soon, McCue hopes to keep the camp going and wants to continue the partnership with the aquatic center.