The Purdue West Lafayette and Purdue Indianapolis teams, including Ms. Cyndi Lynch, Assistant Director of the Vertically Integrated Project (VIP) program, College of Engineering, Purdue University

Lyles CCE Professor (Samuel Labi, Co-PI) in collaboration with Purdue Polytechnic professor Brittany Newell (PI) and students represented Purdue West Lafayette in the 3rd Annual Artificial Intelligence Maritime Maneuver Indiana Collegiate Challenge (AIMM ICC) at the Pokagon State Park in Angola, Indiana, April 17-18, 2026. The team (Roboat) was supported by Tim Murphy and Ricardo Munoz of the US Navy. This year’s event was attended by Dr. Cyndi Lynch, Assistant Director of Purdue’s Vertically Integrated Program (VIP).

The series is hosted and funded by the Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division (NSWC Crane) with the support of the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and planned by a team that included Jason Blume (Trine) and Amy Ruggles (US Navy). This event was created after Congressman Jim Banks (IN-3) led a congressional funding effort towards a NSWC Crane and Trine University partnership.

Team co-advisor Professor Samuel Labi, with the autonomous boat

The purpose of the challenge was to demonstrate the ability to make a fully autonomous LPV and develop solutions for a mixed set of mission objectives. The sponsors provided a low-cost, easy-to-build, low profile vessel (LPV) that can be made fully autonomous for various functions including marine transportation, stealth missions, supply delivery, and search and rescue. The participating schools in the 2026 event were Indiana University Bloomington, University of Notre Dame, Purdue University West Lafayette, Trine University, Purdue University Fort Wayne, and Purdue University Indianapolis.

The Purdue West Lafayette Team earned 3rd place in the technical design report category, and 5th place in the following categories: project presentation, course challenge and overall. Purdue’s Roboat team members included Alex Valdes, Andrew Joseph Shelley, Steven James Van Hulle, Alex Gansler, Yuanxin Liu, Suyash Dash, Michael Meiners, Rohit Sattuluri, Joshua Beigel, Zach Sydenstricker, Siddharth Vanamala, Jacob Long, William Bridgnell, Margulan Mukhametkarim, and Yuvraj Sehgal (CCE). Other CCE students in attendance included Richard Ajagu and Andres Moreno.

Full results from this year's competition are posted online at https://www.trine.edu/innovation-one/aimm/winners.aspx

Team advisor Tim Murphy and team member Steven Van Hulle