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The Question
Most students have never seen the equipment that lets ocean engineers actually study the sea. The instruments cost millions of dollars, sit on research vessels they'll never set foot on, and produce data they'll never see processed. Dr. Sandoval has spent her career trying to change that, building low-cost ocean technology that puts deep-sea instrumentation within reach of people without million-dollar budgets. This summer, she's bringing that work to middle and high school students. They build real ocean sensing equipment with their own hands, and they take it home.
What Students Build
Over two-and-a-half weeks, students build a working hydrophone, an underwater microphone designed to capture sounds from the ocean. They learn the physics of how sound moves through water, the engineering of how to waterproof electronics for ocean use, and the data work of processing what their hydrophone records. By the end, each student takes home a working hydrophone they can deploy at a local waterway, the aquarium, or any body of water their family visits.
The build sits at the intersection of engineering, marine biology, and AI. Students record sound in test environments and learn to use AI tools to identify what they're hearing, fish, sea life, human noise, environmental signatures. By the final week, each student has a working hydrophone, a body of recordings they've made themselves, and the technical understanding to keep using both after the program ends.
Students who can only attend the first week can take the Build Week on its own; students who cannot attend in person can take the same course online.
The Mentor
Dr. Jessica Sandoval designs deep-sea remotely operated vehicles and tagged sperm whales as a Harvard postdoc on Project CETI, the effort to decode whale communication. She leads an in-person Discovery Lab at Pierrepont School in Westport, CT, where middle and high school students build a working hydrophone to take home, then train AI to make sense of what it records. An online version covers the same ground, from how sound travels underwater to the AI that interprets it, without the hands-on build. She also mentors a few students one-on-one.
Who This Is For
Open to middle and high school students with curiosity about the ocean. No prior programming or engineering experience required. Students should be willing to work with hand tools, focus on building tasks for sustained periods, and contribute as a collaborative member of a small classroom. Students who get easily frustrated by hands-on troubleshooting may find this challenging.
Logistics
Dates: June 15 to July 1, 2026
Location: In-person at Pierrepont School in Westport, CT
Days: Mon, Wed, Fri
Session: 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM ET
Price: $3,200 fully inclusive (hardware, materials, all sessions)
Cohort size: Up to 6 students
Flexibility: Students can complete the in-person Build Week now and take the AI portion later in an online cohort at no additional cost beyond the full-program price. The online portion covers the same AI work; it does not include additional hardware.
Application deadline: June 8, 2026 at 11:59 PM