Jupiter High School Underwater Robotics team recently placed at the SeaPerch regional competition at St. Lucia High School on March 1, 2025. Named the Bespoke Jupiter Mobile Contraption, BJMC, the team’s robot placed 3rd overall.

“We got second place on the obstacle course and third place overall,” Yandres Rivera, senior, said. 

The competition itself is split into two parts with the judges scoring the robot’s performance in an obstacle course and an essay describing the robot and the team. 

“The biggest thing they score us off of is our performance,” Emma Rivera, senior, said. 

Rivera helped start the underwater robotics team last year and is currently co-president of the team.

Their performance in the obstacle course is what the team works on for most of the year, making sure the robot they build is fit to accomplish every part of it and meets all the requirements. 

“We have an obstacle course that we have to do, like going through a bunch of hoops and then coming back perfectly. Then we have to do this sort of mission with picking up objects and just a whole bunch of other stuff,” Emma Rivera said. 

Starting at around 8:30 a.m, the competition only lasted a few hours, ending around 10:30 a.m. This time includes all the robots competing in the different categories and judging results being released to the participants. 

“Compared to last year, we did exponentially much better because we used a new design,” Yandres Rivera said.  

The team works on the robot the entire school year stopping at around March to February, meeting every Tuesday. Each member has different roles to make sure the robot does well in different categories such as buoyancy or wiring. 

“We have our tether, the person who works on our control and someone who’s watching us and telling us where to go,” Emma Rivera said. 

With the administrator being engineering teacher Samuel Hagenbuch, the club consists of three members: Yandres Rivera, Yash Patel and Emma Rivera. Patel and Rivera are the co-presidents of the club. 

“I do most of the design engineering and she does most of the fundraising and social work,” Yash Patel, senior, said. 

Members of the club have expressed wanting more students to join, since the existing team is currently only seniors.

“Since we started last year, not many people were interested, but we want to put up more announcements, posters and videos for next year,” Yandres Rivera said.

No previous engineering experience is required to become a member. 

“Just need to have a good teamwork dynamic and open-mindness to learning. It’s not that heavy on engineering,” Patel said. 

Despite being a group that is not as well-known on campus, the underwater robotics team has made big accomplishments in the little time it’s been established and deserves recognition. 

“It’s an amazing experience, I was always interested in engineering, and this was an extra thing I got to be a part of which was really great,” Emma Rivera said.