Parker’s Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROV) Team Competes in International Competition

This August, Parker’s Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROV) team competed at the 2021 Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) International ROV World Championship at East Tennessee State University.

The team in Tennessee consisted of seniors Leilani Kulkarni and Kate Allen-Study; juniors Yazmin Velasquez, Krystal Xu, Yasmeen Ibrahim, Savanna Maness and Diana Llamas; and sophomore Josh Mendoza. The competition lasted four days, and points were awarded based on four main aspects: the team’s marketing presentation, marketing display, product demonstrations and collaborative bonus challenge. The competitors not only had to perform as a team, but also as a company. The marketing presentation and display covered all aspects of the team’s work; explained their design, inspiration and outreach; and, most importantly, marketed their product to the judges. Next, the team put its ROV in the water during the product demonstration to complete as many tasks as possible in 15 minutes. The team had two attempts, keeping the best of the two scores. On the last day, all teams were matched with other schools to raise a banner in the water for bonus points. The Parker team worked hard during the four days and faced many unexpected challenges. At the end of the competition, this team of beginners left with a score of which they were proud, along with many ideas for next year. 

Since this was the ROV team’s first year competing at the global level, they were exposed to many new aspects of underwater robotics and learned a lot about the competition so they can compete better next year. First, being exposed to dozens of different teams gave the students a chance to learn about different ways to build an underwater robot. They also learned how the ROV competition functions, including how marketing presentations take place in front of judges, how many different pool challenges there are and how important it is to think on your feet if something goes wrong. There were many times when the team found something wrong with its robot and had to make hard decisions on the spot to adjust accordingly, which is a great skill to learn for the future. In addition to bonding with other teams and following them on Instagram to keep up with their progress for next year’s competition, Parker’s team learned how to work together efficiently to overcome many obstacles. Overall, the 2021 MATE International ROV Competition was enriching, interesting and a fun experience that gave the students a chance to explore their interests in STEM and have a blast doing it.

“Our team had such a fun time creating our robot, Shelby, and taking her to the regional and world competitions.” Faculty Advisor Elizabeth Druger shared. “We truly cannot wait to experiment and create a new robot next year. That being said, our ROV team and the FTC robotics team would always love new members to make our program bigger and better. On Wednesday, September 28 at 4 p.m., ROV and FTC are hosting an Upper School robotics kickoff event for students interested in joining robotics! It does not have to be a big-time commitment at all—both programs are flexible and can work around student schedules. Also, students don’t have to have any prior experience in robotics or coding in general, and robotics is a super-fun way to get involved in STEM at Parker.”

We hope to see all of you there!

Click here for photos from this experience.