Servo - August 2008

Twin Tweaks ...

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA REGIONAL.

LETTING THE ROV ROAM.

see the other teams there. Some were there to qualify like us, but others were there to compete in the regional.

The MATE Competition has two competition classes: the Ranger class for high school teams; and the Explorer class for university teams and qualified high schools. The Southern California Regional was actually a Ranger class competition, and we were categorically impressed by the sophisticated robots built by the teams. The missions for the Ranger class were slightly different than those for the Explorer class, but it was still exciting to see the creative ideas that teams came up with to pick up the crabs that their missions demanded.

As for the other Explorer teams, it

seemed that our little ROV was certainly the smallest of the bunch. But once again we wouldn’t let that discourage us — remember the Thunderbirds. Other teams had sophisticated control stations stocked with monitors and video game controllers, and there were plenty of colorful ROVs that prowled the pool with ease. We looked forward to getting to know more about our competition at the International Championship, but before that we had our own ROV to finish.

So Long and Thanks for All the Fish

The Southern California Regional was an exciting competition that

inspired us to do our best to add the mechanisms and sensors necessary to transform the ROV-in-a-box into a truly competitive robot. To finish, we needed more motors, a temperature sensor, and some other miscellaneous materials, but unfortunately the kit would no longer be of help — the only parts left in the kit were some extra Styrofoam bits and some battery connectors that we had to ignore in favor of the lug connectors demanded by the competition. The ROV-in-a-box was actually inspired by an ROV competition — the National Underwater Robotics Challenge, held in Chandler, AZ. The pool next door was a lot closer than Arizona, so unfortunately we couldn’t make it out to NURC. It was at least nice to know that our little ROV-in-a-box had a competitive streak. !nventivity also shows some great community involvement by being an active supporter of NURC, the MATE Organization, and even

FIRST Robotics.

UCSD’s Tau Beta Pi members also have a competitive streak, and after finishing the ROV-in-a-box they were eager to go off script. We would all get our chance to be creative, because we had to design and build mechanisms capable of freeing the OBS, retrieving the dive weights, and taking the temperature reading. But there’s so much more to come than additional mechanisms — total redesigns, technical reports, scavenging from other robots, and the climactic International Championship all await in the exciting conclusion in the next Twin Tweaks! SV