Sophomores Athena Chen and Lena Skipina are heading to nationals after winning regional Sea Perch competition over the weekend at Baldwin High School. 

Skipina said the win came as a pleasant surprise.

“We just heard our team name,’ Skipina said. “We were not expecting to win.”  

Sea Perch is an underwater robotics challenge. Teams build their own underwater robotics vehicle, and the competition consists of a challenge course and an obstacle course. The challenge course had new tasks each year, while the obstacle course stays the same every year.  

Chen and Skipina designed their vehicle to look like a fish so it could be more aerodynamic and move through the water smoothly. 

“In nature, fish are shaped the way they are so they can move as efficiently as possible,” Chen said. 

They regularly made modifications to their underwater vehicle, and they plan to make even more before they go to nationals. 

“We are allowed to, before nationals, make modifications to our rover and our technical report, and we are focusing on that right now,” Skipina said.

They are headed to the nationals at University of Maryland on May 13. 

Seniors Ava Bell and Grace Toman finished third in the competition.