At the end of the morning session, two veteran RANGER teams, GEARS from Montgomery Alabama, and Crubotics from Pensacola, Florida, were dead even.
Last year, the Crubotics bested the GEARS team. So, this year, the first-place trophy and the visit to the World Championship was at stake, but so were bragging rights and that feeling you get when you have successfully risen to a challenge.
ROVs are the center of the competition
We had just finished the morning session at the 11th Annual Northern Gulf Coast Regional MATE ROV Competition. ROVs, or remotely operated vehicles, have become a common tool for work in water environments. They are used to study fish populations, explore the deep sea, lay ocean cables, protect national security and much more.
ROVs are different from human-occupied vehicles, i.e. submersibles (HOVs) and autonomous underwater vehicle (AUVs). ROVs are programmable underwater robots that draw needed power from the mother ship via a tether (and not from onboard batteries). They are controlled by a shipboard operator.
In this competition, teams of middle and high school students design and build an ROV and pit their ROVs against those from other student teams.
Our regional competition is part of the Marine Advanced Technology Education, or MATE, program, an international program, originally funded by the National Science Foundation and now a non-profit organization. MATE’s mission is to provide a well-trained marine tech workforce and create interest in STEM education using marine technology.
How the competition works
MATE determines the competition tasks each year, all of which are designed to reflect real world uses of ROVs. This year, the tasks focused on ocean monitoring and observation. The ROVs had to lay cable on the “ocean” floor, connecting it to a “power source,” retrieve “acoustic receivers,” deploy “ADCPs” (acoustic doppler current profilers), transplant corals for restoration, identify fish spawning areas from acoustic data, and make and deploy an ocean profiling float that records environmental data. I’m putting all of that in quotes because many of these tools are models, typically made of PVC, and are not the real objects.
There are several levels of competition
At the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, student teams can compete at several levels: SCOUT, NAVIGATOR and RANGER. There are also PIONEER and EXPLORER competition classes for technical college and university students. As you move from SCOUT, the introductory level, to higher classes, ROVs increase in complexity and tasks increase in difficulty.
All ROVs include multiple motors so they can move forward and backward as well as up and down.
ROVs at the SCOUT level are navigated by individuals watching and flying their ROV from the pool deck.
NAVIGATOR and higher levels require the addition of a camera so that ROVs are flown by watching a monitor.
The critical challenge here is that students need to learn how to waterproof and wire a camera into the tether, show its output on an integrated monitor, and fly the ROV looking at the monitor.
Teams are encouraged to think of themselves as entrepreneurs, with a CEO leading a team of students who specialize in specific jobs, such as design, construction, communications, finance, safety and testing.
Teams compete over weekend
The Northern Gulf Coast competition takes place over a weekend. Teams arrive Friday and test their ROVs in the Sea Lab’s pool. Pool tasks (known as demos) are completed on Saturday during both a morning and an afternoon session (giving teams two chances to attempt the tasks). On Sunday, teams present information about their product (the ROV) through a poster or oral presentation (NAVIGATOR and RANGER).
We recruit practicing engineers to serve as judges for these presentations so that it provides real world experience with “Shark Tank” type presentations. There are first-, second- and third-place winners in each competition class. We also convey special awards for teamwork (Tethered Together Award) and for recovering from a challenge (Buoyancy Award) at our competition.
The winners of the RANGER class at our regional, and winners at the 47 other regionals, go on to compete at the World Championships. Teams at Worlds come from across the world including 21 locations across the US and Canada, Scotland, Japan, India, Bermuda, Turkey, Egypt and many other places. These competitions would not happen without our many volunteers and the support of our sponsors, including Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium.
Discovery Hall Programs offer additional STEM programming
The MATE competition is one component of our ocean STEM program here at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab Discovery Hall Programs and with the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium. In addition to this competition, we have a hands-on class in which students learn about ocean technologies and then build and fly pre-wired ROVs. We have a ‘loaner kit’ program that allows teachers to borrow ROV building kits for their classroom or club for a few weeks to avoid having to purchase the materials.
We also host teacher workshops both on specific ROV platforms and on ocean technology more generally. And, along with our education partners in Mississippi, we host regional SeaPerch competitions (a simpler ROV platform).
Back to the pool
But back to the pool. By the end of the afternoon pool demos session, Water Wardens A had pulled away in the SCOUT class; Fission JIG had managed to top the NAVIGATOR class; and it was getting tense in the RANGER class. GEARS returned to the pool having solved a camera glitch problem that had hampered them in the morning, and they worked to complete tasks with a business-like approach and a clear strategy.
Every student had a role, such as flying the ROV, controlling strategy, playing out tether, making graphs and interpreting data. In the 15-minute demo time, the team had amassed more than twice as many points as they had earned in the morning. Teams still had oral presentations to give, but it was now up to the Crubotics.
So, who won? Well in short – we all did.
Evaluations are completed by all participants – students, team mentors, parents and competition volunteers. Summarizing a great deal of data, as a result of having participated in our MATE ROV competition, students know more about STEM and are more interested in STEM classes and STEM careers. They report feeling more confident in their technology skills. They feel they are better team members, leaders, critical thinkers and problem solvers. Perhaps most importantly, they report having fun during the process.
These results are corroborated by their parents and mentors. Our world needs problem solvers, and our nation needs individuals interested in and qualified for STEM careers. These competitors will certainly help us meet these needs.
Oh, and by the way, despite a valiant effort, the Crubotics were unable to best GEARS in the afternoon pool demo session. And yet, after presentations were given and awards were announced, students from both teams showed the assembled crowd of students, parents, mentors and volunteers what they are really made of. Each Crubotics member congratulated each GEARS member. They offered comments about how GEARS excelled on this day, and spent time sharing their experience at last year’s Worlds and providing tips for competing at the next level.
Meet the author
Tina Miller-Way, Ph.D.
Assistant Director for Education
Tina Miller-Way serves as the assistant director for education for the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium (MASGC) and is a former chair of the national Sea Grant Education Network. She has... Read more
Phone: 251-861-2141 ext. 2257
Email: [email protected]