Parker’s ROV Team Connects with Purdue University

Last Tuesday, Parker’s Upper School Underwater Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROV) team had the incredible opportunity to travel to Purdue University and meet their Underwater ROV team. The Parker team learned about the Purdue team’s robot, saw their workspace and asked tons of questions about how to improve their robot for next year’s competition. The Purdue team has also volunteered to mentor our team next season through online video chat sessions on the Google Hangouts platform, and they will visit Parker in the late fall for a prototyping day when next year’s competition is released.

Additionally, Parker’s team had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Nina Mahmoudian, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University’s School of Mechanical Engineering. She gave the team a tour of her lab and showed them the projects her lab’s team is working on, including developing low-cost autonomous systems for ground and underwater applications; her lab is focused on developing, controlling and navigating autonomous vehicles for different applications in harsh environments. Dr. Mahmoudian has invited the Parker team for a one-week visit to Purdue next summer to take an abbreviated Mechanical Engineering 101 class with the goal of building a small autonomous underwater vehicle.

Click here for photos of this trip.