Updates:

1st Voyage

S/V GOONIES was built by Mrs. Lent’s 7th grade class.
  • Building the GOONIES

     

  • January 21, 2020 - CRMM Miniboat Student Summit

    On January 21, the very first CRMM Miniboat Program Summit was held at the museum where students from Wy’east Middle School, Warrenton Grade School, and Columbia City Elementary School brought their miniboats for a sendoff celebration. 

    Bon voyage: Local students send GPS-equipped miniboats out to sea

     

     

  • June 25, 2020 - Testing

  • August 2020 - Aboard the CGC STEADFAST

    Secured at the stack! Thanks to the crew of the CGC STEADFAST for agreeing to launch another miniboat for us. …

    Posted by CRMM Miniboat Program on Thursday, August 6, 2020

  • Fall 2020 - Launched from CGC STEADFAST

    The Goonies was set to sea by the crew of the US Coast Guard Cutter STEADFAST during a recent mission. Local news covered the story as the ship returned to port after a 57-day patrol. In the article, the Chronicle said, “Steadfast continued its tradition of supporting the Columbia River Maritime Museum’s Miniboat Program. The Miniboat Program connects students from local Oregon elementary schools with their peers across the Pacific Ocean in Japan. Students learn about the significance of ocean currents and weather while building miniature boats to send across the ocean to their partner schools. During this patrol, Steadfast launched this year’s miniature boat “Goonies” (complete with a 3-D printed figurehead of the Goonies movie character Sloth) approximately 160 miles south of the Mexican Coast.”

    The GPS signal on the miniboat was not verified before deployment so Goonies is now drifting silently.

The program was developed by the Columbia River Maritime Museum in partnership with the Consular Office of Japan in Portland, and Educational Passages and is supported by Pacific Power, the U.S. Coast Guard, Columbia River Bar Pilots and many others.

The Columbia River Maritime Museum’s Miniboat Program provides a global, multidisciplinary STEAM learning experience for 5th – 7th grade students in the Pacific Northwest and Japan by empowering them to cooperatively design, build, launch, and track seaworthy, GPS-equipped boats on a journey across the Pacific Ocean.

Since the CRMM program start in 2017, more than 1,200 students on both sides of the Pacific Ocean have been involved in the launch of 24 miniboats (traveling a total of 53,469 nautical miles and counting). These boats are tracked daily, and students are still building on the skills they honed to launch them.