Nathan Benderson Park played host for the third year in a row to the 17th Annual RoboBoat Competition this past spring showcasing the work of 16 student teams representing 6 countries—Canada, Indonesia, Mexico, Poland, Turkey and the United States. This was a record year with all teams passing safety inspection in the first two days and 15 teams qualifying for finals. RoboNation is an international educational organization funded by individual and corporate sponsors as well as government grants, such as the one from the Office of Naval Research. The organization serves 250,000 students a year, grades K-12, across all nine of its robotics programs. “As this is our third year competing here, Sarasota is really starting to feel like home for us,” shares RoboNation’s Director of Communications and Marketing Alicia Gavin. 

PHOTOGRAPHY BY WYATT KOSTYGAN

All of the boats in the competition are unmanned, self driving and built by students as part of their STEM education. Throughout the event, each boat must complete a series of tasks testing acoustic navigation, sensing, speed, object recognition and more. Former champion, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (Barunastra ITS) from Indonesia, returned to Sarasota this year to compete amongst the 19 student teams of mostly undergraduate students for the win which includes a monetary reward and most importantly, according to Gavin, bragging rights. “This is a great opportunity for the students to learn different styles of innovation. Even though we're doing this on the water, there are skills that are transferable to all different things like aeronautical engineering, engineering for vehicles and infrastructure, amongst many other tasks,” shares Gavin. “In the classroom, you're not necessarily getting real world experience. We offer the opportunity for students to actually see their creations in the real world, test them out and realize that not everything works the way it would under lab conditions.” 

PHOTOGRAPHY BY WYATT KOSTYGAN

RoboNation’s Vice President of Programs, Lindsey Groark, believes that the competition helps to bridge the gap between classroom and real world learning. “RoboBoat is the sweet spot in our pathway programs because it is the first step in a fully autonomous system, meaning that for these students, this may be the first time they're building something that actually has a brain of its own and can control itself–they're not driving it with a remote control,” she says. “The learning that happens before the students get here, and then what happens here on site, the collaboration between the teams–it's magical, and it feeds that interest that hopefully will keep them engaged as they move on to further education and careers.” Groark shares that many RoboNation students go on to work in engineering for every type of company imaginable, with one former RoboBoat competitor who now works with the U.S. Navy coming back to the competition as a volunteer and mentor to the students. “Our judges are saying that what they've seen out of the teams this year is exceptional,” Groark adds. “Humans are naturally creative and curious and so why don't we give students a fun environment to figure it out to fail? If they're not failing they're not trying hard enough.”