The shipyard on Seavey Island in Kittery employs more than 5,000 civilians. Of those civilians who live in Maine, 453 live in Sanford and Springvale. They’re on the lookout for the next generation of employees, particularly engineers.
PNSY employees — some of whom are parents of students at the school — worked with the young people, guiding them on how to build their sub from basic materials — like PVC pipe, 35 mm film canisters, and batteries, all contained in a kit.
There’s no question the youngsters are interested. On Thursday morning, before they were to take their submarines to the Sanford-Springvale YMCA to test them out, they worked on some last minute details.
“They’re so engaged, that when it was time for lunch (one day) they didn’t lift their heads, said teacher Becky McCann. “The kids are embracing this.”
PNSY employee Jo Haddad has children enrolled at St. Thomas and led the effort to bring the Sea Perch program to the parochial elementary school after hearing about it being elsewhere. She engaged the help of third generation shipyard worker Ed Cormier, the shipyard’s STEM outreach and engineering recruiter.
“We don’t have enough engineers in America,” said Cormier. “We start (working with) sixth, seventh and eighth grade students to get them excited about science.”
Sea Perch is sponsored by the Office of Naval Research, and when the shipyard folks come to a school, they bring kits, tools and technical documents on how to build the submarines.
On Thursday, the remote control submarines were in various stages of completion. Many had the “sub” itself complete, but were working on creating the remote control function.
Student Tim Veits called the project “very, very nice.”
“You get to build something and its not super easy but its not so super challenging so you can’t complete it, “Veits said.
Cormier look around the classrooms, eyeing progress — and perhaps, future shipyard engineers.
“They’re knocking it out of the park,” he said.
— Senior Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 324-4444 (local call in Sanford) or 282-1535, ext. 327 or twells@journaltribune.com.
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