Contact: Allison Matthews
Photo by: Megan Bean
STARKVILLE, Miss.--Four new electrical and computer engineering alumni from Mississippi State University are traveling this week to Canada to become the first Bulldogs to participate in an international underwater robotics competition sponsored by the Marine Advanced Technology Education Center.
The May 2015 graduates of MSU's James Worth Bagley College of Engineering are culminating a team effort they began as part of assistant professor Randy Follett's two-semester senior design course, which they began in August 2014. The Sea Dogs ROV team worked for nearly a year with their eyes on the 2015 MATE Competition: Science and Industry in the Arctic. The competition takes place June 25-27 in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.
"One of the greatest challenges we faced was preparing the remotely operated vehicle for use in the challenging conditions of an underwater arctic environment," said team member Amelia G. Hebert of Laurel. "Our other main challenge was staying on schedule when facing major setbacks during testing."
Other team members include Bradley S. Calhoun of Starkville, Anna E. Purser of Brandon, and Hunter A. Rawson of Madison. Jane Moorhead, MSU electrical and computer engineering instructor, served as the team's advisor.
The MATE Center, headquartered in Monterey, California, uses underwater robots, known as remotely operated vehicles or ROVs, to teach science, technology, engineering and mathematics--also known as STEM subjects. Competition is open to K-12, community college and university students from all over the world to design and build ROVs to tackle missions modeled after scenarios from the ocean workplace. The MSU group is competing at the highest level in the EXPLORER class.
Working in partnership with the Marine Technology Society ROV Committee, MATE encourages students to develop and apply technical, teamwork and problem-solving skills. The organization also seeks to provide industry with skilled individuals who can fill workforce needs.
Hebert said the project's challenges gave the students an invaluable experience in design, testing and time management.
"This experience has helped each of us learn how to be an effective team member, how to manage project time wisely and how to delegate tasks so that everyone on the team can be productive simultaneously," she said.
The team built the MSU ROV to specifications outlined by the competition. While underwater, the robot must complete up to 15 tasks, such as picking up a ball, turning a valve, taking pictures and providing feedback to operators.
The team said they hope the week will be a learning opportunity, as well as serve as a foundation for future MSU teams.
"We hope to meet a lot of great people in the marine industry and in the competition community, to learn from other teams about their best practices, and to have fun seeing how our ROV fares," Hebert said.
For more about the competition, visit http://www.marinetech.org/rov-competition-2/.
MSU is Mississippi's flagship research university, available online at www.msstate.edu, facebook.com/msstate, instagram.com/msstate and twitter.com/msstate.