Flash forward to Aug. 3. The Saratoga­Monta Vista Joint Naval Robotics Team not only built a submarine, they entered it in a high-level contest—the fifth International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition in San Diego.

The company was intimidating—teams were mostly at the university level, and with much more funding, but they placed 11th out of 15 teams and won the "Bang for the Buck Award," given for the best performance relative to money spent.

"We only spent about $1,000," said Chris Yang, the Saratoga team leader. "We beat teams that spent 15 to 20 times more than we did."

The team—consisting of Irene Fan, Jayant Krishnamurthy, Jessica Kuo, Stacy Lin and Chris Yang from Saratoga High School, and Frank Wang from Monta Vista High School—worked for about four months on the robot, spending a few hours every week discussing, planning and building their machine. In the last few weeks, the preparation intensified, with some members of the team pulling all-nighters to perfect the sub.

The Saratoga Robotics team had entered the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition in January, so they had competition experience, but this competition was more advanced—"maybe a little bit above our level," Fan added.

However, they ended up creating a machine worthy of the big leagues.

"There was only one other high school out of the 15 schools that entered," Fan said.

Facing competition from such prestigious universities as Duke, Cornell and MIT, the Saratoga­Monta Vista team arrived with a submarine ready for battle. However, they continued to tinker with their creation.

"We were still testing it in the hotel pool," Yang said.

All of the underwater vehicles had to complete the same tasks. The submarine was required to go through an underwater gate and locate 17 underwater objects and determine their depths.

The Saratoga­Monta Vista sub made it through the underwater gate, but flooding in the electronic compartment disabled the vehicle, causing it to be unable to complete the other tasks.

While the team might not have won the competition, the members still got quite an experience competing with the upper echelon of school robotics teams.

"We really tried our best, and it was nice to be recognized at a competition of this level," Yang said.

However, it wasn't all work and no play. Team members described the competition as a fun experience.

"You get to know everybody a lot better," Fan said. "I usually do more mechanical work but now I've gained some more knowledge in general."

"I learned a lot about team dynamics," Yang said. "We learned how to best utilize everybody for maximum efficiency."