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Sunday, August 30

Welcome back LT Searock!



LT Jeremy Searock is a 2003 graduate of our very own Systems Engineering department. As a first class midshipman, LT Searock worked along with Professor Brad Bishop and John Vranish, an engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, on a next generation planetary rover. The project was designed to improve the obstacle clearance capabilities of a rover comparable to the NASA Sojourner, which landed on Mars in July of 1997. The project used a unique mobility concept entitled the “mountain climbing team method.” This method enabled a similar rover of comparable size to the Sojourner to traverse an obstacle 75% taller, while also increasing its ground speed. LT Searock’s first class design project won the 2003 David R. Marsh Design Project Award.





Upon graduation from the United States Naval Academy, LT Searock entered the Robotics Masters program at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. LT Searock worked along with Manuela Veloso and Brett Browning in developing the capabilities of a Segway Robot Mobility Platform to play a modified game of soccer along with humans. The project was funded under DARPA’s mobile autonomous robot software program (MARS). LT Searock designed and built two 250+lb robots capable of playing soccer along with humans riding the Segway Human Transport. ("Turning Segways into Soccer Robots". In Proceedings of IROS 2004). His master’s thesis involved creating a method to prevent robots from entering unrecoverable states and thus improving their overall robustness. ( "Learning to prevent failure states for a dynamically balancing robot", Proceedings of AAAI 2005.)





Upon completion of the naval nuclear power training pipeline, LT Searock reported to USS Nevada SSBN-733 in Bangor, WA in October 2006. He served as the Reactor Controls Assistant, Main Propulsion Assistant, Quality Assurance Officer, and Assistant Engineer. He completed several patrols and an Engineered Refueling Overhaul.




In March of 2009, LT Searock reported to USNA once more to become one of our military instructors. He is located in Maury 244.