An Integrated Approach to Promoting An Interest in Marine Technology in British Columbia

The Department of Mechanical Engineering Technology at the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) is developing an initiative to promote an interest in marine technology. The initiative involves students at three distinct levels: British Columbia high-school students, BCIT Technology Diploma students and BCIT Engineering Degree students. The high-school level of the project, the BCIT Underwater Discover Challenge, brings together high school students from around British Columbia to attend a two-day workshop to design, build and test an underwater ROV. This year on February 18th 30 students from five schools from across British Columbia attended the design and build workshop. By the end of that day all five school groups left with a nearly completed ROV that could be used to perform an underwater task. Over the next two weeks the students finalized their ROVs and, on March 3 at the BCIT Marine Campus, the students tested their designs and found out how challenging it is to successfully complete the underwater mission assigned to them. These students are encouraged to take the ROV they built to the regional MATE ROV competition [1] and this year one of the ROVs designed and built at the Underwater Discovery Challenge came in 3rd place at the MATE regional competition. The Technology Diploma level of the project involves one or more groups of students completing their diploma of Mechanical Engineering Technology at BCIT. Interested students work on the design and building of an Explorer class ROV for the MATE International ROV competition. If more than one group decided to participate a BCIT competition is held to determine which ROV design will be entered into the international competition. This year six BCIT students were involved in the project and traveled to St. John's, NL in June to compete. Many interesting ideas on how to capture algae and jellyfish, service a wellhead and thread a messenger line through an eye-bolt were discussed at the team meetings and an innovative ROV was developed for the task. The team had great success at the competition and received three honors including the Sharkpedo award for best engineering innovation on an ROV. The Engineering Degree level of the project, still under development, involves a team of BCIT Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering students and students from other departments who design and build an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle for the AUVSI Autonomous Underwater Vehicle competition. Having all three levels of students involved in the design and building of different underwater vehicles allows BCIT to show students how a simple ROV built for a high-school challenge can lead the students to building a fully autonomous vehicle, thereby sparking an interest marine technology and showing the students a potential educational path towards a career in the marine industry. This year the BCIT ROV team volunteered at the high-school challenge and it was great to see the interaction between the high-school and the BCIT students. This type of interaction is key to a successful project and we believe that, by integrating all these different initiatives into a single project within a the department more students will become interested and involved in marine technology.