Sea Air and Land Challenge – a STEM Initiative

Posted by Penn State's Applied Research Labs on December 5, 2023

Welcome to the Sea Air and Land Challenge, an introduction to engineering through the use of robotics for high school  students.

True to the program’s name, teams of students may design and build submersibles to maneuver underwater in the Sea Challenge, drones to fly in the Air Challenge or land rovers to carry out a ground-based operation in the Land Challenge.  Students have the spring semester to design and build the unmanned vehicles and payloads, and each team is paired with a volunteer engineering mentor to guide them through the process.  Sponsored by the Department of Defense (DoD), the robotic systems are then used to compete on Challenge Day, a one day competition, in missions which mimic those encountered by the military and first responders.

The Sea, Air and Land Challenge, nicknamed the SeAL Challenge, has three objectives.  The first is to provide students with an opportunity to tackle a difficult engineering project while in high school.  The second is to provide students with an awareness of the tremendous technical careers in the DoD as a civilian or in the armed forces, and the third objective is to help educators and administrators implement or enhance a successful Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) program into their schools and organizations even given time, budget and resource constraints.

The SeAL Challenge can be presented to the students as a club or a before or after-school activity.  Several schools have also written this solid and effective program into their curriculum on its own or as part of an engineering, technology, math or physics course.  In addition, an optional detailed one semester curriculum, written by ITEEA, is now available at no cost to schools and other organizations.  The Challenge may also be used with home school students or students from a club or other organization.

The program, now in its twelfth year, is free to students, school districts and organizations.  There is no fee for registration or the program material, however, each team is responsible for securing their own funding, a maximum of $600 per team, for their open-sourced robotic system as part of the challenge.  Demonstrating effective budgeting and cost management for their project is considered in scoring each teams’ work.

School registration is now open for regions across the state including Northern (Bradford area), Central (Altoona area), Southwestern (near Pittsburgh), Eastern OH/Western PA (Rayland, Ohio), South Central (Lancaster area) and Eastern (Berks Co/Reading area).  If you are interested in learning more, please visit our website or contact us at Sea Air Land Group (seaairland@arl.psu.edu).

If you are interested in participating, you may register your school here.

We are also open to starting new regions for those who wish to participate closer to home.