MATE ROV competitions: 10th Anniversary!

The Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) Center organizes international and regional underwater robotics (remotely operated vehicle or ROV) competitions for students in grades 5-16 from around the world. The competitions use ROVs as a platform to excite, engage, and instruct students in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and demonstrate how these disciplines are applied in the real world. The competitions include mission tasks that are based on practical problems from the workplace as well as technical reports, poster displays, and engineering presentations that are evaluated by working professionals from STEM fields. Through the process of preparing for the events, the students gain technical as well as troubleshooting, teamwork, project management, and communication skills. The program is a comprehensive “package” of learning that has the added benefit of exposing students to ocean-related career opportunities and showing them the pathways to those careers - a critical step to meeting ocean STEM workforce needs.