Hancock Seagles Trip to Canada

Hello! We are a group of students who make up an underwater robotics team, the Seagles, from John Hancock High School, a  low-income neighborhood school on the southwest side of Chicago. We have built an underwater ROV and recently competed in the MATE Underwater ROV Shedd Aquarium Midwest Regional event. We, unlike many other participants, had a very low budget to work with. While other teams had highly equipped and expensively built robots to compete, we had our much less expensive “underdog” robot and hopeful spirits. As we walked into the gym and glanced around at our competition, we doubted placing at all. We still tried our best, and remained high in spirit, for our coach has taught us never to stop fighting. Our coach is a fighter herself, as a cancer survivor. Every day she inspires us to remain hopeful and to never stop trying. We worked really hard in the weeks before the competition. Our challenge as a team was to not doubt ourselves nor how hard we worked on our robot. We initially did doubt ourselves, but we were reminded constantly by our coach to remain hopeful because hard work and good spirits always pays off. It did indeed! Our team placed 2nd, and is now eligible to attend the 2015 MATE International Competition in Canada this summer!


We were very excited for earning the right to attend this competition, but right away worried about money. The International is much too far to drive- in St. John’s, Newfoundland-Labrador! Considering our school has minimal funding, we have to come up with a way ourselves to finance this trip -transportation and lodging for 8 students, and 2 mentors, plus the cost of shipping our ROV. We are doing everything possible to further this wonderful accomplishment. We so far have sponsored our school’s Spring Dance, and are currently going to prepare for a number of bake sales and other fundraising endeavors. It is not everyday that a low-income neighborhood school with minimal resources accomplishes such a great thing, especially not in a STEM focused event. We would very greatly appreciate any donation you can make and/or word you can get out to make our trip to International a reality. You can do this by sharing our gofundme page link and by donating,  or by sending a check made out to Hancock High School, with underwater robotics in the comments line, to Underwater Robotics Club, Hancock High School, 4034 W 56th Street, Chicago, IL 60629. We will gratefully acknowledge your support on our presentation poster unless you ask us not to. Thank you for your time. :)

-The Seagles