Welcome to a unit on Naval Engineering literature

Below you will find rigorous informational materials aligned to high school expectations. There are two videos that reinforce Speaking & Listening skills and three Informational Texts.

1. Video: Unmanned Surface Vehicle demonstration.
2. Text: Introducing Unmanned Surface Vehicles
3. 
   

If you are interested in more naval engineering materials, click the "For Educators" tab to the left. Also, please contact us with any questions or suggestions about these materials.

1. Video on Unmanned Surface Vehicle demonstration.

Question Set #1   (Downloads for PDF and Word versions of question set)

While you watch the video, write down any questions you have (including any words you do not know).

After you watched the video, circle any of the words here that you did not know.

Then, answer these questions. You may need to watch parts of the video again to answer some questions.

1. Who produced this video? _____________________________________________________________

2. How do you know? ___________________________________________________________________

3. What technology previously used some of the robotic technology shown in this video?

1. Hubble telescope

2. NASA’s Mars Rover

3. the new aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford

4. James Cameron’s Deepsea Challenger submarine

4. Circle the three discoveries allowed for the Swarm technology.

1. nuclear fusion

2. nuclear fission

3. machine perception

4. artificial intelligence

5. distributed data fusion

6. orbiting satellite technology

5. At 5:40 in the video, Rick Simon talks about the “eyes and ears” of a ship. Put an X on the technology listed in Question #4 that gives the ship “eyes and ears”.

6. How does Rick Simon use “guard dogs” to make his point clear at 2:31 in the video?

1. in a simile about the shape of the boats

2. in an allusion to the damage ships can cause

3. in a metaphor for the US Navy’s role in the world

4. in an allusion to the amount of damage ships can receive

5. in a metaphor to show that these boats are exactly like guard dogs

6. in a simile that shows the role of the Swarm ships and the larger ship

7. The narrator mentions CARACaS, and CARACaS stands for Control Architecture for Robotic Agent Command and Sensing. What are the two components of CARACaS?

7a. __________________________________ 7b. _______________________________________

8. What are “surface assets”? ___________________________________________________________

9a. Meggan Schoenberg explains this experiment. What does she say should happen when the adversary approaches?

9b. Is their prediction accurate? How do you know?

10. What types of people worked on the Swarm technology? (Circle all that apply.)

1. men

2. women

3. fast swimmers

4. university professors

5. researchers in centers and labs

6. governments of other countries

7. Office of Naval Research experts

8. strong people that can paddle quickly

9. naval engineers in private companies

11. What do unmanned ships add according to Dr. Robert Brizzolara (5:10)? _______________________

12. What does "autonomous" mean in this context? ___________________________________________

13. What type of engineer is Andreas Marcial? _______________________________________________

14. Why did they interview Andreas Marcial?

1. He drove a Swarm boat.

2. He worked on the Swarm boats.

3. He designed the Swarm technology.

4. He invented the idea of autonomous boats.

5. He paid for the research into autonomous boats.

15. Do you agree with the narrator when he says that Swarm is “unleashing a new era in advanced ship protection” (0:29)? Why or why not?

16. Is there anything still unclear about the Swarm technology or this video? You can write it here.

Note: If you want to read, more about this topic see this ONR press release:

https://www.onr.navy.mil/Media-Center/Press-Releases/2014/autonomous-swarm-boat-unmanned-caracas.aspx

Alignments:   NGSS    Common Core ELA    Virginia Science    Virginia ELA

Answer Key   Student Site (coming soon)