SUCCESS STORIES
Tahoe Maritime Foundation provides support to maritime activities, history & education.
Onsite testing of the student-built underwater robots.
Testing their underwater robots in Lake Tahoe.
The Boys and Girls Club of Lake Tahoe had a successful summer thanks to their grant from Tahoe Maritime Foundation. Here are some of their accomplishments:
July 2022 – summer underwater robotics camp. 4th grade and up participated in a camp to build a robot capable of working underwater. Robots were tested in a paddling pool at the Club and then taken down to Lake Tahoe for a real-life test. The members had not considered the bumpy nature of the lakebed or stronger waves, but 99% of science is learning from your failures and the camp was a great success!
September 2022 – purchase of laser cutter and accessories to facilitate the design and construction of miniature wooden boats and other projects. Setting up laser cutter and calibration. CO2 laser cutters are excellent rapid prototyping tools, allowing our students to take a sketch or idea of a design and bring it to life quickly and easily. They can iterate quickly, improving their overall problem-solving, engineering design, and critical thinking skills.
Summer 2022 – rubber band paddlewheel boat program with elementary grades. Students assembled boats from a kit to learn about buoyancy and propulsion methods. They then used the engineering design process to improve the performance of their vessels to make them faster and to travel further. Some students opted to manually fabricate further iterations while others created models with design software for 3D printing.