Mr. Boat Jangles

Voyage 1

• About Us

  We are Newport Middle School and are one of the proud recipients of Big Rock Foundation’s 2025 charity donations to Educational Passages in collaboration with Carteret Education Foundation!

  We began working on building our miniboat together as a club in March 2026. Our lead teacher (captain) Mr. Todd Stehle and Mrs. Stehle (co-captain) helped guide our project and we were all a part of the crew, doing different tasks based on interest and skill sets. We all voted on our boat’s name, and the winner was: Mr. Boat Jangles!

  We had a blast with our project. Here are some pictures of the progress:
  

  June Updates:

  We have finished our build! Before the school year ended for summer vacation, we made final preparations and shared our work with other classmates by bringing our miniboat around the entire school. We had fun showing off our work and answering everyone’s questions.

• June 11 2026: Big Rock Tournament Education Day Event

  We were given the amazing opportunity to present our miniboat at the Big Rock Tournament’s Education Day, on Thursday June 11, 2026. We had a great time teaching everyone about our miniboat and making sure they know how to track it once it is launched. We were interviewed on Big Rock TV and even got to meet the mayor of Morehead City, Mayor Lee Stiles!

  Check out the Big Rock TV recording and some of the images captured at the event:
  
  
  We then handed off Mr. Boat Jangles to our deployer Captain Dale Britt of the Weldor’s Ark, and the Roberts family, right at the landing! Some of us could be heard saying: “Is this real life!?”
  

   

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• Launch Update and Ocean Science Data From Onboard Sensor Pack

  On the morning of June 12, 2026, before lines went in the water for Day 4 of the 2026 Big Rock Tournament, Captain Dale Britt and the crew of M/V Weldor’s Ark launched our miniboat! Check out the launch video and the first few images at sea taken from the onboard camera:
  
  Sensor Data

  The boat has two tracking systems: 1. The main GPS reports to the map above, and 2. A student-installed secondary GPS tracks location, air and water temperature, orientation, and even has a camera, with the map below showing only the last 7 days of sensor data. Contact us for more information or access to the full dataset.
  
  We want to thank the Big Rock Foundation, Captain Dale Britt, the John Roberts family, the crew of Weldor’s Ark, Newport Middle School Miniboat Crew, Miniboat Captains Mr. and Mrs. Stehle, the Carteret Education Foundation and Ms. Erica Jones for helping to make this all possible!

  You can follow along with all Big Rock – miniboats here.

  Stay tuned for more updates!