Toby Ratcliffe, educational outreach coordinator for the naval center, said that half of the Navy’s scientists are eligible to retire within the next 10 years, so it is essential to create a pipeline to fill those positions.
“Research shows that you have to start at the elementary-school level to get kids excited,” Ratcliffe said. “They can then make choices about which classes to take to pursue their career goals.” She said the Navy is trying to attract students who have never had an interest in math and science.
After the Loudoun students arrived at the Bethesda campus, Ratcliffe outlined the day’s schedule. First, officials checked how the robots worked out of water. The robots were then tested underwater to make sure they could move back and forth, left and right, and up and down.
The goal was to maneuver the robots in a water tank to catch ping-pong balls in netting and push them across a finish line. The exercise was designed to simulate a mission to recover oil from the water, such as in th 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
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