Portsmouth students learning from failure at Navy Base

NUWC program teaches real-world engineering to new generation of students

Jim McGaw
Posted 7/28/16

MIDDLETOWN — Like real engineers, the high school students participating in the Undersea Technology Apprentice Program (UTAP) sometimes have real squabbles over construction and …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in

Register to post events


If you'd like to post an event to our calendar, you can create a free account by clicking here.

Note that free accounts do not have access to our subscriber-only content.

Day pass subscribers

Are you a day pass subscriber who needs to log in? Click here to continue.


Portsmouth students learning from failure at Navy Base

NUWC program teaches real-world engineering to new generation of students

Posted

MIDDLETOWN — Like real engineers, the high school students participating in the Undersea Technology Apprentice Program (UTAP) sometimes have real squabbles over construction and design.

“We were arguing over how to program the controller — which button makes it go forward and which button makes it go back — because some people in our group play video games and they’re used to the controller being a certain way,” said Austin Francis during a break inside Building 80 at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) in Middletown on Tuesday. 

“There are some arguments, but we usually work well together,” added Austin, who’s going into his freshman year at Portsmouth High School. 

Teamwork is key in UTAP, in which high school students participate an engineering projects in small group settings under the mentorship of local professionals. Seventy-five students were selected for three, three-week sessions at NUWC, including 10 from Portsmouth.  

Sponsored by the Undersea Sciences and Engineering Foundation (USEF), the end goal of the internship program is to develop the next generation off scientists and engineers. With any luck, said Candy Desjardins, educational outreach program director for NUWC, they’ll end up back here. 

“I would love to see them come here; I want to retire some day,” she joked. “But on the whole, if we can convince kids to go into science and technology, whether they work here or go somewhere else, we need to increase the pool. If we can get the pool of talent up, then the (Department of Defense) will have no problem hiring students.”

The 60-hour course blends lectures and hands-on activities focused on undersea technology. Students’ main task is to build and program a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) that will must follow certain prompts while it swims inside a 20-foot-deep tank. 

But they’re also learning about teamwork, experimenting through trial and error, working with time and budget constraints, documenting their results and more. In other words, everything a real engineer does.

“This is a truly a hands-on kind of experience,” said Ms. Desjardins, explaining why students from as far away as California have applied for the internship. “You’re not just following one person around; in most internships you’re assigned one engineer. These kids are actually working as engineers for the three weeks they are here.”

Technology programs are on the rise in the public schools, but due to budget constraints teachers can’t run their programs the way they’d like, she said. “And, I think a lot of the tech teachers don’t have a strong background in it. Let’s face it, they don’t pay teachers what they should for this kind of stuff,” she said.

Time, budget constraints

Here, students face the same constraints and challenges that engineers deal with on a daily basis, Ms. Desjardins said. 

“We give them play money,” she said. “They have a budget, just like the real world. We had a teacher a couple years ago who wanted to bring in parts from home. You can’t do that. There are constraints and you work with what you’re given.” 

Bill Ferreira, chairman of USEF’s board of directors, points to one team’s robot that stands out from the rest. Instead of using the standard orange flotation devices that all the other participants attached, the team mounted a half-filled plastic water bottle on either side. The floats cost “money,” while the water bottles were free.

“They decided to save money on floats. They found it was too buoyant, so they filled them with a little water,” said Mr. Ferreira, adding that each team was constantly tinkering with their robots in making design improvements. “If you were to come back next Wednesday, you probably wouldn’t recognize them.” 

Learning from mistakes

Engineers aren’t supposed to get things right the first time, Mr. Ferreira said. “We’re trying to stress to them, there’s no right answer or wrong answer. What’s important is that they’ve thought through the problem, considering their budget and time constraints.”

Ms. Desjardins agreed. “We tell them, failing is OK here, as long as you understand what went wrong and why you wouldn’t do it in the future,” she said.

Learning through making mistakes is one of the things Cabot Priestner likes about the program.

“I’ve learned that failure isn’t the worst thing in the world because you learn from it. Every time you fail, you gain knowledge of what works and what doesn’t work,” said Cabot, a 15-year-old who’s going into his sophomore year at Westport High School.

Teamwork is another key element of the program. 

“We break them up randomly, so you’re out of your comfort zone. If there’s somebody else from your school, you may not be with that person,” said Ms. Desjardins, adding that close friends will intentionally be separated for the remainder of the internship. “Working in groups is tough for them sometimes, but this is what the world is going to be like.”

Mary Stack, who’e entering her senior year at PHS, said there’s another Portsmouth student on her team, but he’s a freshman.

“I think it’s good,” she said. “You meet new people and get to hear different perspectives. I heard a couple of kids say they were into robotics, so they helped us and we helped them with things they’re not comfortable with.”

Right fit?

One of the more practical benefits of UTAP is that participants will hopefully find out if engineering is right for them. 

Even at 15, Cabot Priestner said he has no doubts. Not only does he want to study engineering in college, he’d like to follow that up with a medical degree and eventually get into robotic surgery.

Austin Francis is thinking about mechanical engineering going forward and would like to possibly pursue a future job at NUWC. 

Peter Fiaschetti, a PHS junior interested in science and math who enjoyed learning how to program the Raspberry PI — a single-board computer with a surface the size of a credit card — is still not sure if engineering is the way to go.

Mary Stack applied for the internship for the expressed reason to see if engineering was something she wanted to pursue in college. Since she had never done any programming or built functional machines from scratch, she finds UTAP “very interesting” and helpful. 

“But I see myself more in biology,” she said.

And that’s OK, said Mr. Ferreira.

“We tell them, ‘When you’re through with this, you’ll know what the engineering world is like.’ At the end of this, they might say, ‘I don’t want to do this for a living.’ That’s important information, too. You can go off and be productive in something else.”

NUWC, UTAP, Undersea Technology Apprentice Program, Naval Undersea Warfare Center

2024 by East Bay Media Group

Barrington · Bristol · East Providence · Little Compton · Portsmouth · Tiverton · Warren · Westport
Meet our staff
Jim McGaw

A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.