🤖 UNITY AMONG THE WORLD'S BEST: UNDERWATER ROBOTICS TEAMS FINISH 7TH AND 19TH AT INTERNATIONAL SEAPERCH CHALLENGE! 🌊

Two underwater robots built by Unity Junior High students traveled from Cicero to Maryland this summer. By the time the competition was over, both had earned places among the top 20 middle school teams in the world.

Unity's Underwater Robotics Teams returned to the 2026 International SeaPerch Challenge at the University of Maryland, College Park, marking the fourth consecutive year Unity students have qualified for the international competition.

And they made this year count.

Team Phoenix finished 7th overall and Team Oasis finished 19th out of 88 Middle School Stock Class teams, placing two Unity teams among the international top 20. Phoenix's seventh-place finish put the team in approximately the top 8% of the entire middle school field.

The accomplishment becomes even more impressive when considering how quickly SeaPerch has grown. In 2023, the international competition included 147 teams and approximately 800 students. This year, a record-breaking 210 teams and 1,199 students traveled to Maryland from Egypt, China, Kazakhstan, Kenya, New Zealand, Puerto Rico and across the United States.

Together, this year's teams traveled an incredible 144,924 miles to compete!

Unity earned its place on that international stage through strong performances at regional competitions in Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan. Over four consecutive years, students have continued refining their remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROVs), using testing and performance data to make them faster, more balanced and more efficient.

The improvement is measurable. In 2023, Unity's obstacle-course time was approximately 1 minute, 30 seconds. This year, Phoenix completed the course in just 51.53 seconds.

But speed tells only part of the story.

Engineering documentation has become one of Unity's greatest strengths. Unity teams have consistently ranked among the top 8% or better internationally in the Technical Design Report category. This year, Phoenix ranked 7th and Oasis 13th in technical reporting.

One of the most memorable moments came when Phoenix eighth-grader Emma discovered something unexpected: a Chinese team had cited Unity Team Oceanus' 2025 Technical Design Report in its own report.

"It was a chance encounter, and I remember the rush I got from seeing us mentioned in that report," Emma said, "knowing that a team I was particularly interested in knew about our own efforts as a team."

In other words, Unity students weren't only learning from international competitors. International competitors were learning from Unity.

Another first came when both Phoenix and Oasis were selected to present their designs before a college classroom filled with middle and high school students, coaches and parents. Students confidently explained their unique ROV features, discussed performance data and answered questions about their engineering decisions.

For the students, however, some of the most memorable moments happened outside the pool.

Team Village brought together young engineers from different countries, cultures and educational backgrounds to compare robots, exchange ideas, play games and simply get to know one another.

Phoenix eighth-grader Isaak described seeing students from places such as Kenya and Kazakhstan sharing their approaches to engineering while celebrating their cultures.

“It was so fun to see people… learning about new cultures, and their own unique method of approaching engineering, while also comparing our similarities as engineers,” he said.

Other students remembered a wall covered with encouraging messages in different languages, playing Jenga with other teams, seeing unique ROV designs, trying a game at a Chinese team’s table and meeting students they otherwise may never have encountered.

“The most joyous part of my day was getting to meet new people, having conversations about underwater robotics, and finding similarities with each other,” Phoenix seventh-grader Nicolas said.

That may ultimately be the greatest accomplishment of the experience.

Unity students traveled to Maryland to test robots they had spent months designing, building, testing and improving. They returned having competed successfully against some of the strongest young engineering teams in the world—and having discovered a worldwide community of students who share their curiosity and passion for solving problems.

Congratulations to Team Phoenix, Team Oasis and Unity Junior High’s Underwater Robotics program on another outstanding international performance!

They went to Maryland to see how their engineering measured up against the world.

They showed that Unity belongs there!