---
title: Floating With Disaster
date: 2023-12-08T05:30:00-05:00
author: University of Maryland
canonical_url: "https://today.umd.edu/floating-with-disaster"
section: Articles
---
# Floating With Disaster

*December 8, 2023* — by [Maggie Haslam](/author/maggie-haslam)


> Undergraduate Research in Robotics Teaches Students to Fail Forward

*FIRE Robotics 12052023 JC 5908 1920x1080 — Students from the First-Year Innovation & Research Experience (FIRE) Program tentatively place their robot, which was designed to travel vertically and hold depth, in UMD's neutral buoyancy tank for testing. As part of a research group in bio-inspired robotics, the undergraduates are experiencing the successes and failures of the research process firsthand.*

The fish was floundering. Bobbing precariously at the edge of University of Maryland’s neutral buoyancy tank, a robotic catfish struggled to swim as the students coaxed its motor. The device should have been cruising along the surface of the 367,000-gallon pool; but despite countless tests, hours and design reboots, something had gone very wrong.

That’s sort of the point, said Assistant Clinical Professor Lena Johnson ’14, M.S. ’16, Ph.D. ’22.

“The creative process is all about iteration; that’s how everything gets better,” she said. “But also, it’s going to fail. Sometimes that’s the goal. And everyone needs practice with that.”

The project, which challenged student teams to design and build a bio-inspired robot that could address an environmental challenge, such as sucking up microplastics from the Chesapeake Bay, is the students’ introduction into research at the University of Maryland, and a crash course in trial and error. Called Bio-Inspired Robotics, it’s the newest research group, or “stream,” offered through the University of Maryland’s [First-Year Innovation & Research Experience (FIRE)](https://www.fire.umd.edu/), an undergraduate program that immerses students in collaborative projects that accelerate career readiness and opportunity.

Building a robot from scratch is an exercise in creativity, logistics and careful planning—building one that works, as Johnson teaches her students, is about leveraging your failures. Surrounded by dog-eared pages of sketches and formulas, teams worked to hone their designs and “break them,” said Johnson. The gap between an idea and the physical manifestation can be yawning, as students discovered when testing early prototypes. Gears that grind. Waterproof casings that are anything but. Propellers that won’t propel.


*three students next to a robotic arm — From left: Students Gautham Hari, Soham Chawathe, Ishan Khillan prep their robot for its maiden voyage in UMD's neutral buoyancy tank.*


*Students gather around a small robot on the floor — Assistant Clinical Professor Lena Johnson (center) grabs video of one student team's robot, which was designed to navigate both water and land. Later iterations of the robot could remove algae from the water's surface in field testing.*




**Topics:** [Campus & Community](https://today.umd.edu/tags/campus-community), [Research](https://today.umd.edu/tags/research)


**Tags:** [Robotics](https://today.umd.edu/topic/robotics), [Student Experience](https://today.umd.edu/topic/student-experience)


**Units:** [Office of Undergraduate Research](https://today.umd.edu/topic/office-of-undergraduate-research)