The Next Team Starts With a Teacher
by Jaime Walton • July 2026
⏱ 5 min read
This spring, 166 students from 21 schools and community groups across the region designed and built underwater robots, then put them to the test at the 2026 Tulsa Regional SeaPerch Challenge. More than a third of those teams didn’t exist a year ago.
That growth began with teachers.
New educators stepped into SeaPerch, new schools joined the competition, and more students got the chance to build, problem-solve, and work as a team. Those students didn’t just participate; they left with stronger connections to STEM than their peers nationwide.
❝Without the training, I would be lost while kids are building. Now I feel totally confident.❞
It starts with a teacher
Expanding access to hands-on STEM experiences starts with equipping teachers with the confidence and competence to create them.
Last September, Tulsa Regional STEM Alliance brought back its SeaPerch Educator Training for the first time in several years. In the Siegfried STEM Learning Lab at TRSA, 18 educators from across Oklahoma—ranging from Moffett on the Arkansas border to Arnett in the far west—spent a day building robots built from hardware-store parts their students would build in the spring. They measured, cut, waterproofed motors, made mistakes, and learned how to fix them.
Melody Kuehn, a veteran robotics coach from Kingfisher, had been waiting years for the opportunity.
❝I was so excited to get into this program and had been waiting a couple of years to be able to learn about this competition.❞
When Kuehn’s table finished its robot early, she turned her attention to the other teacher teams. She watched for the mistakes they were making and took notes, building a list of pitfalls her own students might encounter months later.
The experience changed how prepared she felt to lead a team.
“Without the training, I would be lost while kids are building,” she said. “Now I feel totally confident in helping them troubleshoot and prepare them for building and the competition.”
Kuehn wasn’t the only one who left ready to lead. Every educator surveyed said they planned to use what they learned, and more than half reported greater confidence in their ability to teach STEM after the workshop. By spring, half of the educators had launched SeaPerch teams of their own. Nine new teams ultimately joined the regional competition, including Kuehn’s.
SEPTEMBER
18 educators, one Saturday
MARCH
9 new teams at regionals
Into the storm
This year’s theme, “Storm Response: Technology in Action for Recovery and Relief,” shaped every part of the competition. Teams navigated a timed obstacle course, completed a mission course based on storm-recovery tasks, and met with a professional engineer to explain the design decisions and engineering process behind their robots.
Thirty-six percent of the teams were new to the regional competition, surpassing TRSA’s goal of 30 percent. Behind every new team was a teacher who had taken a chance on something new, a school that made room for another way to learn, and students who now had the opportunity to see themselves as engineers.
On the pool deck, Kuehn watched her students send their ROV into the water for the first time. When the robot veered off course, the students didn’t look to her for an answer. They looked to each other, talked it out, and tried again.
Measure what changed
The robots were one measure of success. What happened to the students was another.
Using The PEAR Institute’s Common Instrument Suite, TRSA compared student outcomes from the 2026 SeaPerch Challenge with national data. The results showed meaningful gains in three areas that matter for a student’s future in STEM.
56%
of students grew their STEM identity
compared with 42% nationally
62%
left more interested in a STEM career
compared with 46% nationally
54%
reported stronger relationships with adults and peers
Together, they point to an experience that reaches beyond building and piloting a robot. Students aren’t just developing technical skills; they’re building confidence in their ability to participate in STEM, imagining themselves in STEM careers, and strengthening the relationships that help them thrive.
For TRSA, that’s the main goal: helping more students see themselves as capable, connected, and part of the STEM community.
Beyond the pool
For two teams, the SeaPerch journey continued well beyond regionals.
The Circuit Breakers from Memorial High School and Circuit Breakers 3 from Memorial Middle School advanced from the regional competition to the International SeaPerch Challenge at the University of Maryland on May 30 and 31. They joined a record field of 210 teams from around the world, including China, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Kenya, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, and communities across the United States.
The Tulsa Public School teams held their own. Memorial High School finished 10th out of 82 teams in its division, while the middle school team finished 11th out of 88. Both improved on their regional scores and moved up the rankings with stronger technical design reports. The high school team also posted the fourth-fastest obstacle-course time in its division, finishing less than three seconds from third place.
❝They kept their cool, made the adjustments they needed to, and still performed well in the pool.❞
What happens next
The next SeaPerch story starts with a teacher.
This fall, TRSA plans to offer SeaPerch Educator Training again, giving more educators the chance to experience the challenge for themselves and build the confidence and competence to lead a team. From there, the path is familiar: a teacher learns, a team takes shape, and students get the chance to build, troubleshoot, collaborate, and discover what they’re capable of.
Somewhere in Oklahoma, there’s a teacher who hasn’t discovered SeaPerch yet—and a group of students who haven’t discovered what they can do.
$150 puts a whole team in the water
That covers a robotics kit, the curriculum, and every competition cost for one team. Fund a team’s season, or part of one.