Last school year, Scotlandville Pre-Engineering Magnet Academy participated in the 2016 MATE Northern Gulf Coast Regional ROV Competition, in Dauphin Island Sea Lab, Alabama held last April 22-24, 2016.
This event was participated by several schools from different states around the region including Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida and Missouri. It was a tough and demanding competition, both physical and mental, as teams are exposed to the heat and challenges in making their robots work. The competition was divided into two parts. One is the ROV competition and the other is the Engineering & Communication.
At the ROV competition, the ROV has to accomplish different missions or challenges which includes capping an oil well, collecting coral and oil samples and recovery of critical equipments. This part allowed two rounds and the highest score from the two rounds will be added in the overall score.
SPEMA was represented by two teams in this event. We had an all-boys team, the Aqua Techs and an all-girls team, Azure H2O (sponsored by SPE Evangeline!). Both teams demonstrated impressive driving skills as they successfully maneuvered their ROV’s in the water. Their ROV’s worked as expected with the help of the features they have designed on their robot. The first round was the team’s first attempt on the missions and the scores were not as high. During the gap between the next round, the teams were able to come up with an improved game plan allowing them to score in the 100’s.
The Engineering & Communication section also had two parts, the Engineering Presentation and Marketing Display. Team Aqua Tech gave a very impressive presentation enough to get an invitation from Oceaneering, an ROV building company, to deliver their presentation to the management. The teams were also invited to test drive simulations of multi million-dollar ROV’s at their facility.
At the Awards presentation, the top three teams of all categories: Ranger, Navigator and Scout, were awarded plaques. Based on the scores among Scout teams, Azure H2O placed 4th in the Regional competition, just 1 point below the third placer. While team Aqua Tech got the 3rd place award in the Navigator category. This is an achievement considering that this is the school’s first time to participate in this competition and the students competed against high schoolers. The students had so much fun not just at the competition but during the whole process of building and designing their robots as well. They feel so proud of with what they have accomplished and are looking forward to an opportunity to apply everything they have learned.
