This week, Linn-Benton Community College’s ROV team is competing in the Marine Advanced Technology Education Center’s (MATE) International ROV (remote operated vehicle) competition in Kingsport, Tennessee. Their ROV this year is named “Spike.”
Linn-Benton is going up against international competition at the event, in which teams operate underwater robotics.
LBCC instructor Greg Mulder provided an update Friday on how the “ROVRunners” and their signature pink cowboy hats are faring thus far at the competition:
The LBCC ROV team did great yesterday. They scored 105 points in yesterday’s first attempt at the pool mission. 105 points is otherwise known as “great”!
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I wish I had more time to tell a more coherent story. During our first pool test we shared the pool with the team from Egypt and the team from France (this is the first year France qualified to come to the international competition). We’ve been swapping tools with Purdue for the past couple of days. The whole team has been working together (rather effectively I think) to focus on a huge variety of engineering, communication, culinary and general troubleshooting skills. Around 300 colleges and universities started working on an ROV back in September – only the top 30 teams made it to the international competition. Being surrounded by the top 10% of teams who had what it takes to get here is an exhilarating experience.
Thanks for making this possible LBCC, OSGC and everyone who supported the LBCC team!
OSGC refers to the NASA Oregon Space Grant Consortium, which provided LBCC with a grant to build their ROV and make the international competition.
The competition will conclude on Saturday, June 22. The event program can be viewed here.
MATE is streaming on Twitch, via this link, for those hoping to catch some of the competition. Mulder also shared a time lapse of the LBCC team putting together their ROV after shipping, which can be viewed on the team’s YouTube channel.
You can follow ROVRunners on Facebook.