2025 SeaPerch Season

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May 31 - June 1, 2025 | College Park, Maryland, USA

Environmental Monitoring: Coral Restoration

Coral reefs provide coastal protection for communities, habitat for fish, and millions of dollars in recreation and tourism, among other benefits. But corals are also severely threatened by rapidly worsening environmental conditions.  Efforts to help corals recover include the following activities:

  • Planting nursery-grown corals back onto reefs.
  • Making sure habitat is suitable for natural coral growth, including the removal of invasive species.
  • Building coral resilience to threats like climate change.

The below event information applies to the 2025 International SeaPerch Challenge. Please check with your local regional coordinator for event information related to your local regional competition.

 

2025 International SeaPerch Challenge Handbook

We are thrilled to share with you the 2025 SeaPerch Handbook, an all-in-one resource that will set you up with everything you need for the SeaPerch 2025 season!

Explore the Team Handbook
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Competition Timelines

Competition Elements

Pool Courses
Pool Courses
Required

Objective: Demonstrate the performance of your novel ROV design.

 

Submission Format: No pre-event submission.

Teams will complete pool course runs on-site, in-person at the 2025 International SeaPerch Challenge.

 

Overview: Navigate your SeaPerch ROV through an obstacle course and a mission course including a series of tasks. Score points for time and successful task completion.

 

The Obstacle Course tests high-speed maneuverability and requires the SeaPerch ROV to navigate the course as quickly as possible.

 

The Mission Course incorporates a mission related to Deep-Sea Exploration. The Deep-Sea Exploration Mission is a simulation of the tasks and environment that an ROV might encounter while exploring the harsh environments that surround hydrothermal vents.

 

Resources

Pool Course Build Guide (includes Master Parts List)

Technical Design Report
Technical Design Report
Required

Objective: Communicate your intentional design process.

 

Submission Format: Technical design report

 

Overview: Describe the intentional design process you completed for your SeaPerch ROV. This report should include all required sections in the instructions and provide judges with an understanding of your unique SeaPerch design and your team’s approach to developing this design. This report should focus on the SeaPerch ROV your team designed to compete in the 2025 SeaPerch pool courses.

 

Need a Starting Point?

Engineering Design Process Page

Example Technical Design Report – MS Stock Class

Example Technical Design Report – HS Stock Class

Example Technical Design Report – Open Class

Technical Design Report – Scoring Rubric

Meet the Team
Meet the Team
Required

Objective: Introduce your team

 

Submission Format: Digital upload

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Overview: Connecting with your community is important. We want to get to know you! Reach out and share your team or school’s logo, an overview of what your team is all about, and social media information so we can share it with the SeaPerch community. This is your chance to introduce us to your team and team’s personality.

Real-World Innovation Poster
Real-World Innovation Poster
Optional

International Challenge Teams:

Real-World Innovation Poster is an optional event.

 

Objective: Explore real-world applications for underwater ROVs.

 

Submission Format: Digital poster (Powerpoint Template)

 

Overview: Identify a real-world issue and design a SeaPerch to address the issue. Create a virtual poster to tell us all about your project. Poster submissions can include anything from a conceptual design to a full project that you completed in the real world.

 

Need a Starting Point?

SeaPerch in the Wild

Real World Innovation Rubric

Community and Outreach
Community and Outreach
Optional

International Challenge Teams:

Community and Outreach is an optional event. 

 

Objective: Give back to the community!

 

Submission Format:

• Written statement (with photos and videos as applicable) submitted as a one-page PDF.

 

Overview: It’s time to give back. Whether you volunteer your time in your community or your team finds a way to connect and offer support online, we want to hear about it. No project is too big or small!

 

Note: This is not a scored component but will be reviewed for special awards.

Season Resources

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Team Handbook

2024 Team Handbook

Version 1 (View)

Published September 18, 2024

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Coral Restoration Resources

Coral Restoration Foundation:  Headquartered in Key Largo Florida, the Foundation was founded in 2007, in response to the wide-spread loss of the dominant coral species on Florida’s Coral Reef.

 

NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program:   This program is a partnership between the NOAA Line Offices that work on coral reef issues. They bring together expertise from across NOAA for a multidisciplinary approach to understanding and conserving coral reef ecosystems.

 

NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program Resources:  Education resources

 

Restoring Coral Reefs | NOAA Fisheries: Coral reefs provide coastal protection for communities, habitat for fish, and millions of dollars in recreation and tourism, among other benefits. But corals are also severely threatened by rapidly worsening environmental conditions. Learn how NOAA works to restore these valuable habitats.

 

Mesophotic and Deep Benthic Communities Restoration | NOAA Fisheries: Vital seafloor habitats were damaged by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. NOAA and partners are building a network of experts and resources to restore this underexplored area in the Gulf of Mexico.

Tips and Tricks for the SeaPerch Season

Create a calendar to map out the construction progress. Start early and give the team deadlines for changes to design and build. Be sure the team is aware of all deadlines and what part each has in the process.

Identify team roles for each part of the process. Have back-ups ready. Think ahead to possible conflicts and how they will be resolved.

Find family sponsors to support hosting design sessions, driving to meetings and practices, supporting travel to competition.

For the design, make sure everyone has a say but encourage research to justify selections.  Define the goals of the perch and justify design decisions based on what performance is required. Don’t over-design, keep it simple. Take some time to discuss first principles.

Build an obstacle course and the challenge course or at least sections of the course. Practice as much as possible! 

Start your design notebook from day 1 but avoid long-winded entries. Info should include design iterations and justification for those iterations and any testing to verify results. Teach writers to be succinct and organized and to record test data as soon as possible!

For competition, students can assemble a small poolside emergency triage (zip ties, electrical tape, wire cutters, scissors, extra buoyancy, rubber bands), to allow quick repairs

Emphasize the importance of each team member. Everyone wants to be the driver, but the tether operator is the coach on the pool deck.  They can ask for time checks, confirm that points were scored, remind the driver of pre-determined strategies and notify the driver if they are about to get themselves tangled.  Monitoring the tether is also important in controlling drag on the ROV.

 

Regional Competitions Are Now Open

From the Regional Host Application to the active list of Regionals, find all the details for 2025 events on the Regionals page.

Find out more about the 2025 Regional Competitions
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Qualifying for the International SeaPerch Challenge

So you want to compete at the International SeaPerch Challenge?

 

There are two ways to earn your spot:

(1) Compete Regionally

(2) Wild Card Application

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