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
Recommended Websites
www.nventivity.com
!nventivity Homepage
www.marinetech.org/rov_competition
MATE Competition
h2orobots.org
NURC
tbp.ucsd.edu
Tau Beta Pi, California Psi
18 SERVO 08.2008