MATE Robotics Competition Names Winners From Canada, Wisconsin
Teams from a university in Newfoundland
and Labrador and a high school in Wisconsin took first place at the
Marine
Advanced Technology Education (MATE) Underwater Robotics Competition.
The
competition, which challenges students at all levels — K-12, community
college
and university — to design and build remote operated vehicles (ROVs),
robots,
to accomplish underwater tasks, took place at the NASA Johnson Space
Center's
Neutral Buoyancy Lab.
The
winning team in the advanced Explorer class was from Memorial
University of St.
John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. A team from Ozaukee High School in
Ozaukee, WI, took first place in the intermediate Ranger class.
The
Memorial University team also won an award for best product
demonstration in
the Explorer class and a special award went to team member Rachel
Seymour, who
was named Most Valuable Player for her demonstration during the final
presentation.
Ozaukee
High School also won an award for best product demonstration in its
class, as
well as the "Best Bang for the Buck" award for having the vehicle with
the best
performance for the price.
In the
Explorer class, Jesuit High School of Carmichael, CA took second place
and AMNO & CO of Seattle won third place. In the Ranger class, the
Highway 68 ROV Club of Salinas, CA came in second and Harrington Middle School of Mt.
Laurel,
NJ third.
A complete list
of winners of all awards is available online.
MATE's
goal is to encourage students to learn and apply science, technology,
engineering and math (STEM) skills, particularly in an effort to
prepare them
for the future workforce for ocean occupations.
Throughout
the school year, teams at all grade levels worked to develop
dual-purpose
single-launch ROVs that can operate in the deepest oceans and harshest
outer
space environments. Using the NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Lab - the world’s
largest
indoor pool at 202 feet long, 102 feet wide and 40 feet deep - the
teams had
their ROVs conduct a number of tasks.
In the
ocean-themed missions, students used their ROVs to turn a
decommissioned oil
rig into an artificial reef and collect oil samples and coral
specimens. The
space-based missions challenged the teams to pilot their ROVs under the
ice
sheet of Jupiter’s moon Europa to collect data.
About the Author
Michael Hart is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and the former executive editor of THE Journal.