The 10th Annual International Student ROV will be held in Houston from the 16th to 18th of June at the Neutral Buoyancy Lab in the Sonny Carter Training Facility.
Students prepare their ROV (underwater robot) for the pool at the MATE Center's annual student ROV competition.
The student participants will have to navigate the Remotely Operated vehicles (ROV’s) that they have built through the conditions that the ROV operators faced during the deepwater horizon oil spill. The students were encouraged to form ‘companies’ rather than teams while working on their ROV’s so that they feel like entrepreneurs. While working on their projects, students developed skills like teamwork, creative thinking and issue solving, which are important for survival in the current global workplace.
During the Gulf Oil Spill, ROVs and their operators worked relentlessly for almost three months in order to contain the oil spill. A similar scenario was recreated for the students to compete using their robots and accomplish missions such as removal of a damaged riser pipe, collecting a water sample, sampling organisms, capping a wellhead and measuring depth. Apart from completing the missions, the teams were required to submit reports and presentations to a panel of judges from various sectors of the marine industry. The parameters for judgement are design, construction and performance of the ROV; communication of their learning and utilization of their knowledge in building the ROV.
The competition invites participation from the middle school, high school, community college and University students. It is supported by the National Science Foundation, NASA, NOAA, marine Technology Society ROV Committee and other organisations related to ocean and space areas.