MATE ROV Competition Comes Home to Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center
Divers place items key to the competition in preparation for the 2018 Great Lakes Regional MATE ROV Competition at the Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center.
Alpena- Underwater robots, experts in marine technology, and eager students ready to test their skills are what you can find this Saturday in Alpena.
For the first time ever, the 2018 Great Lakes Regional MATE (Marine Advanced Technology Education) ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) Competition will be held at the Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center. Students will now compete in a 500 ft. dive tank versus the Alpena High School pool. A water filtration system was installed last Fall which was made possible by a grant from the Besser Foundation.
“Before we weren’t able to have the event on campus,” said Katie Wolf, Director of Friends of Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary. “the cool thing about that for students is that they will be really immersed in actual research setting.”
Students from the region and all around the Great Lakes will present their robot to judges, compete in real world challenges that Maritime Archaeologist and Divers face, and meet with current experts in the field. Just over 100 students will be participating this year with 14 teams looking to take home the glory. Four of the teams are from Alpena. The competition is one of many throughout the world.
The theme for this year’s event worldwide is “Jet City” where students have to design their ROV to locate and retrieve an airport engine, recover a seismometer, and install a tidal turbine to help monitor the environment. The theme was based off the Pacific Northwest where experts in the field encounter similar challenges when using their ROV. For the students, it’s a good chance to simulate real world issues that current experts face.
“Informal education offers interdisciplinary opportunities so the students get to practice their science, technology, engineering, and math skills when their building the robots,” said Wolf.
The event kicks off at 8:00am and will continue on throughout the day. No need to buy a ticket, the competition is free and open to the public to watch. You can find out more information by visiting the website here or by heading to the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary Facebook page here.
