Alia Lebovitz of the Naselle Bubbleheads robotics team shared some of her thoughts about attending the International SeaPerch Challenge earlier this month.

Here’s what she had to say:

“I got to talk to other kids who shared my interests from all over the world. I even got the chance to joke around with native Chinese speakers in Chinese.

“We did a good job working with what we had. We met teams who practiced everyday for hours, and had been doing the challenge for years. Despite this being our second year and only practicing a handful of times, we still did well.

“For the second year in a row, our flotation fell off of the ROV during an official run. Awkwardly, it fell off because we just forgot to glue it on, so it's a pretty easy fix.

“This year at SeaPerch I learned that glue exists for a reason, and that no amount of luck can replace practice.

“In the process of building this robot we learned that even the smallest thing can make a big difference. The motors seem a lot more important than a zip tie when you're putting a robot together, but when the robot falls apart mid-run, the importance of that missing zip tie sure seems to grow.”

The Bubbleheads are Lebovitz, Logan Scheller, Lewis Hoff, Derek Suomela, and Hunter Blain. They took fifth place overall in the open class at SeaPerch and had a fifth place finish in the technical design reports, and a seventh place for their video. They placed fifth in the mission course, scoring 90 points, and finishing with a time of 5:03 and eighth in the obstacle course with a time of 1:37.19.