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A team of employees at Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC) Pacific recently won the Department of Defense (DoD) STEM Advocate of the Quarter award for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2023. The accolade recognizes outstanding STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) education and outreach efforts that further the mission of the DoD.
The team, which comprised approximately 100 volunteers, received the award for their work planning and executing NIWC Pacific’s hosting of the 26th International Student Robotic Submarine (RoboSub) competition in August 2023. The NIWC Pacific winners were co-led by:
• Stephanie Luna, strategy implementation manager, Corporate Operations
• Travis Moscicki, project lead, Unmanned Maritime Vehicle Lab
Co-sponsored by NIWC Pacific and the Office of Naval Research (ONR), last year’s RoboSub competition involved 35 teams composed of 350 students from the U.S., Canada, India, Singapore and Bangladesh. They built robotic submarines designed to overcome simplified versions of challenges relevant to the autonomous underwater vehicle field.
The NIWC Pacific volunteers, working with those from ONR, supported students competing in underwater subject matter areas such as oceanographic exploration and mapping, detecting and manipulation of objects, and pipeline identification and tracking. The volunteers provided more than 1,000 hours of support.
“Until 2019, NIWC Pacific had hosted Robosub for 17 or 18 years,” said Moscicki. “Then COVID hit and the competition had to go virtual for a few years. It was very satisfying to see RoboSub come back to NIWC Pacific in person and see the talents and enthusiasm of the student engineers.”
The DoD STEM Advocate of the Quarter award is one of several prestigious accolades the Office of the Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Science and Technology — located within the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering — presents to individuals and teams within the DoD civilian workforce in the fields of research and development, technology transfer and transition, and STEM advocacy.
According to the award citation for the NIWC Pacific team, multiple factors resulted in their win, including:
• Coordinating a visit by Chief of Naval Operations (then Vice Chief of Naval Operations) Adm. Lisa Franchetti.
• Garnering on-site event support from the U.S. Coast Guard Dive Locker and Naval Information Warfare Systems Command Reserve Program.
• Securing use of NIWC Pacific’s Transducer Evaluation Center (TRANSDEC) pool. The TRANSDEC contains six million gallons of water. Its design eliminates all extraneous man-made or natural biologic noises and permits precise control of surface and underwater conditions.
• Developing a STEM Ambassador Program, which connected RoboSub teams with NIWC Pacific early-career engineers, who worked with competitors for short durations to solve key issues.
“We congratulate the NIWC Pacific RoboSub competition team for their impressive achievement,” said Chief of Naval Research Rear Adm. Kurt Rothenhaus, who also serves as the Naval STEM Executive. “Through passion, hard work and vision, they helped ensure an engaging, inclusive and rigorous RoboSub event for the next generation of scientists and engineers — an event that served as a dynamic introduction to naval challenges.”
For Moscicki and Luna, the biggest reward of participating in RoboSub, which is a RoboNation program, was interacting with the competitors.
“I think about the teams from Arizona State University and Texas A&M, which were all-women teams," said Moscicki. “They overcame a lot of challenges and obstacles to get to RoboSub and they performed brilliantly.”
Luna said, “I have a 26-year-old daughter who is a computer scientist and works in STEM. Programs like RoboSub really resonate with me. You see how hard these competitors work; their tears and laughter; and how they execute tasks, overcome disappointment and cheer each other on. It’s incredibly inspiring and gives me hope for the future and what our country has to offer.”
Warren Duffie Jr. is a contractor for ONR Corporate Strategic Communications.
| Date Taken: | 05.15.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 05.15.2024 11:20 |
| Story ID: | 471331 |
| Location: | ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA, US |
| Web Views: | 85 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Valued Volunteers: NIWC Pacific Employees Win DoD STEM Prize for RoboSub Service, by Warren Duffie, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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