A Different 4H Project - Homestead Robotics - Sea Perch 4H

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Okay, so I am in Little Rock with my two boys and we are >> he's crippled. We're going to a 4 competition and honestly I'm praying that we lose.

[00:00:14]>> Okay, so we're getting on the elevator going to the parking garage. We are at the hotel heading over to the competition. Why do I want to lose?

[00:00:23]Because where do we have to go if we win?

[00:00:26]>> Washington DC.

[00:00:28]>> And that's just scary. Who wants to go to the swamp?

[00:00:31]>> So, what kind of 4 competition are we talking about here? This is actually a robotics 4 competition.

[00:00:39]Underwater robotics. When I first heard about this, I'm thinking, "Oh, cool.

[00:00:43]It's going to be like a battlebot type thing.

[00:00:45]>> Verify our range to target. One ping only."

[00:00:49]>> It's not.

[00:00:57]>> Okay. Okay. So, first thing before we get into what we're doing today, uh, everyone's noticing the crutches. What happened to you? Crippled. Wait, tell the story. Tell it right.

[00:01:07]>> I was driving too fast in a UTV and I flipped onto its side and a roll cage bar on my foot. It broke his foot.

[00:01:15]>> So, he broke his foot. He rolled uh we have a It's called the UTV. U we call it the U on the on the phone on the homestead. Uh, and he was driving that.

[00:01:24]What were you driving? What were you doing? You were building something. What were you building?

[00:01:27]>> Uh I was building a rabbit hutch and I was wanting to get more supplies and return to them quickly.

[00:01:33]>> So he's building a rabbit hutch because we have dogs and we're trying to build uh these hutches so that we can grow our own rabbits and feed the dogs rabbits.

[00:01:43]Um have our own grow our own dog food basically. And so he was turning he turned us just too tight of a radius at way too fast. flipped it, crushed his foot, and so now he's wearing a boot for the next two months or whatever it is.

[00:01:59]And uh yeah, so now he's going to this event that we've been p or he's been practicing for for months and he's hobbling along on crunches. So now that we got that out of the way, we are going to this event. It's called Sea Perch.

[00:02:15]It's a 4 program uh that our 4 has partnered with for these kids. kids. And when I first heard about it, I was like, "Oh, cool. An underwater battlebot, you know, program." And I thought these were going to be like robotics that, you know, fought each other. I'm like, "That's going to be cool." But then I realized, no, it's just basically an obstacle course. You have an underwater, you know, drone that you fly through an obstacle course and you have to get a best time. There's different categories and there's a presentation. So, it's a lot less fancy than I thought it was going to be. I'm I'm picturing in my mind that these things are going to be equipped with like torpedoes or something, you know, and they're going to be like sinking other, you know, underwater drones that other kids have built. And I'm thinking this is going to be great, but it's nothing like that at all. So, it's not near as exciting. But, so they're going to go compete today and there's going to be lots of others people from around the state. If you win, you go to Washington DC and you fight nationally or you compete nationally based on time. this underwater obstacle course and uh we'll see. I don't want to go to DC. I don't want to have to drive. I don't want to have to fly. I don't want to have to go any I don't like ever leaving the homestead. Just being this far from the homestead 2 and 1/2 hours away is enough to make I just don't like being I if you're if you're the same way, you don't like leaving your homestead, leave a comment below. I'd love to know that I'm not alone in this. But it's an experience.

[00:03:41]The kid is competing. He's doing he's going to do a great job. We'll show you the drone later on here in a little bit.

[00:03:46]And um and we'll show you the competition. It's going to be a great video.

[00:03:51]>> What? I'm crippled.

[00:03:52]>> I'm crippled.

[00:03:55]>> They meet requirements under 25 bucks.

[00:03:57]Don't expose wild.

[00:04:06]>> Pretty cool. Thank you.

[00:04:10]>> The girl saying it's all the way in the back.

[00:04:41]So this is what you see underwater. So, they'll have this underwater and then your drone has to navigate this obstacle course. Go down, go through, go up, and through and then back again. All while it's attached with a wire.

[00:05:10]Like a badge of honor.

[00:05:12]There we go.

[00:05:14]>> Thanks, sir.

[00:05:15]>> Very cool.

[00:05:16]>> All right. Should I give this back to you?

[00:05:17]>> Oh, yes. I keep that. Thank you very much.

[00:05:19]>> Thank you.

[00:05:20]>> Good luck, y'all.

[00:05:20]>> Okay.

[00:05:31]>> Hold on. I turned down.

[00:05:34]>> Okay. So, this is their coach, Cassie, and she's going to walk us through real quick on all the obstacles that the drone has to complete uh to be successful. So, watch this.

[00:05:42]>> Underwater, this is actually up and they have to move this down and hook it onto the hook. They slide this over.

[00:05:51]>> Okay.

[00:05:53]>> Um, this one they take it off the hook and it pops up.

[00:06:00]The fish they move to this side.

[00:06:06]This is their heavy object. It's like four and a half. I think it's a half a pound. And if they move it off of the platform, they get points. If they hook it onto a hook, they get extra points.

[00:06:20]>> Where's the hooks at?

[00:06:21]>> The hooks will be at the front of where they start from. They're starting back.

[00:06:26]>> So, they have to bring it back this way.

[00:06:27]>> Yep.

[00:06:28]>> Okay.

[00:06:29]>> And then this one, they move to another hook and at the starting point.

[00:06:35]This is at the starting point and they bring this over and they have to put it in the hole and they close >> that >> that >> they have to close that. Okay, I'm going to go up here and see if I can find the pool. We have to climb these stairs and we can watch everything from above.

[00:07:00]Heat.

[00:07:05]Heat.

[00:07:44]I don't So far, I've watched a number of these teams compete and um I've listened to a lot of the things that Caleb was telling me about when they were preparing for this tournament. And um a lot of these uh drones, the little ROVs that they have, the little perch sea perch things, they they stop working. I I've seen a number of them out there competing. They just sink and the kids are like, "What happened?" So, you hope there's not a malfunction with your motors.

[00:08:25]>> She's going to sink, Captain.

[00:08:27]>> Uh that everything goes the way it's supposed to. when they were doing their practices back in town, they would meet at a pool nearby or near town and they would practice with their little, you know, they had all the uh things set up, all the all the normal regulation uh you know, obstacles set up so they could compete and practice. Well, uh they had a number of malfunctions then, you know, and hopefully they've worked out all the bugs, but you see some of these like rings that they have to navigate through. you want a small ROV.

[00:08:59]You want a small drone. Um because if it's big, it's just not it's going to be hard to fit through it. And so they've uh Eli, who's on the team, has been doing this four years in a row now. And so they they've basically designed an ROV that's very small, very compact, can move quickly, and uh navigate these obstacles very fast. And that's the key to winning. And so um uh they've done really good in years past, but there was always another team that beat them. Um, most people I think do the animal stuff for 4 and when it comes to homesteading, but this is something a little bit different.

[00:09:48]is just trying to break.

[00:10:16]There's a light shot.

[00:10:35]>> So, they got 52 seconds. 52 seconds on that last run. Um on the first run.

[00:10:41]First run, right?

[00:10:42]>> Yes.

[00:10:42]>> That's a pretty good score, right?

[00:10:44]>> Yeah.

[00:10:44]>> Like I was trying to go to the right and it wasn't going to the right.

[00:10:47]>> It's still a good score though.

[00:10:48]>> Yeah.

[00:10:49]>> Cuz I remember I saw you going.

[00:10:51]>> What are you doing right now?

[00:10:52]>> Tightening this nut cuz it appears to have come loose which is not good.

[00:10:56]>> So the biggest concern is that you have when you're running between competitions that at some point you might get water in some of these engines, right?

[00:11:02]>> Yep. That's a really big risk.

[00:11:15]He was right in.

[00:11:23]>> So, the boys just finished their two courses. They did pretty well. Their times were pretty good. Um, I don't know if they were good enough to beat some of the other teams or at least one or two of the other teams, but they were pretty good. And now they have to do their presentation. So they're inside with the judges right now doing their presentation and they get judged for that as well. So after they're done with all of that and all the kids have done all of the courses and their presentations, there'll be a uh basically an awards ceremony where they hand out uh some of the prizes and awards for the teams that did really well. So it's just a matter of time before they start calling out the winners.

[00:11:58]>> Yeah.

[00:11:58]>> What do you think?

[00:11:59]>> We did pretty good. We might get second.

[00:12:01]>> Second.

[00:12:02]>> Thank you. No one remembers second place.

[00:12:05]>> Yeah, I know. But we're not going to get first. There's too many good people.

[00:12:10]>> Senior song obstacle course. Third place from Madison County. Rip tie girl second place county that award right here in 3 2 1. So, we just got done with the awards ceremony.

[00:12:45]Everything went pretty well. We got third place in one of the categories, the obstacle course, right?

[00:12:50]>> Yeah.

[00:12:51]>> So, that's not bad. Your first time first time in it. And you know, you you guys got third place in obstacle. The guys who won it, the guys who got first place, they were really good. They had you can tell they had practiced. They worked their butts off. Um so, uh the work that they did paid off. So, they they did a very good job. So, um, but yeah, it was good good experience. And, um, for 4, not for 4, but for the county fair this year, you're also going to be putting in a rabbit, quail, and I believe chickens.

[00:13:23]>> Yep.

[00:13:24]>> For for the county fair. So, we're looking forward to doing that. Stay tuned for that. And that's more of the homesteading thing, but I thought this 4 experience might be a little bit different of a 4 experience than most homesteaders partake in. So, I thought I'd bring you guys along with us. All right, we're headed back to the homestead. See you next time on American Homestead. Bye. One of the best perks about living off-rid is that I never pay an electric bill. I love being my own power company, but that means when things go wrong, I have to be the one on call. So, I try and use reliable components for my power production. For the last couple of years, I have been promoting oop solar generators. I've been using them and abusing them, and as it turns out, they are pretty good products. They have power generators for all occasions, and they can be charged by permanent or portable solar panels, as well as AC power. They offer true lithium iron phosphate batteries and this is important. Recently, a family in my area had a different brand that uses the less stable nickel manganese cobalt or NMC type batteries. The unit caught fire in the middle of the night. It was a scary situation and it caused damage to the home, but thankfully nobody was hurt. The generator, as you can see, was a total loss. This drives home the point on why it's so important to employ solar generators like the oopies brand that uses the much more safe and stable technology of lithium iron phosphate otherwise called lifepo 4. They offer small generators for travel or for powering an entire home and everything in between. These are great backups to have in a medical emergency or to power a freezer full of your favorite meat products or as I have shown in past videos for even backup AC and DC power sources for ham radio communications.

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