Including 100 volunteers and 800 international students in 65 teams from 19 countries, the competition for 2020 is going to challenge the community to tackle problems that impact the entire world. Plastics are polluting our rivers, lakes and oceans alongside climate change raising ocean temperatures, affecting coral reefs.
Year-on-year the organisers at MATE International ROV competition put pressure on teams to create smaller, more modular ROVs. In Bulgin’s case study, it was highlighted how a high school robotics team used Bulgin connectors to achieve this. And now, we’re sponsoring teams for 2020.
MATE International ROV Competition
The MATE International ROV competition is based around remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) inspiring and challenging students to learn and apply science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Organisers want students to use STEM to solve real world problems using critical thinking, collaboration, entrepreneurship and innovation.
The competition furthers the mind-set of entrepreneurship and innovation with the obligation for teams to transfer into ‘companies’ that provide solutions for real world problems. These companies also have to produce a marketing campaign display and technical reports, as well as the expectation to deliver engineering presentations.
Thanks to funding from the National Science Foundation at Monterey Peninsula College in 1997, the Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) Center was established. They worked in partnership with the Marine Technology Society’s ROV Committee to create the competition with the first event in 2001.
Bulgin has recently announced an opportunity for student teams to request samples for the 2020 event through the Connectivity Community.
In 2019, Jesuit High School from California, USA was supplied with sample connectors from Bulgin in the MATE competition. The school robotics team won third place overall with thanks to Bulgin connectors featured into the design. Bulgin also sponsored the overall international finals in 2019, which took place in Kingsport, Tennessee.
This year, Bulgin will be offering free engineering support and samples to school robotics teams from all over the world that compete.
How do we get our free samples?
To request their samples, students must:
- Register for the Connectivity Community
- Post their sample requests
- Provide contact email
- State their team name, location and class
- Provide an introduction to their team
- Provide a basic brief as to how Bulgin samples will be used
To accompany their requests, teams must also share progress with images and testimonials from the heat and finals during the development and once the build is completed.
The 19th annual MATE International ROV competition will take place June 25-27, 2020 at Villanova University in Pennsylvania, USA.
Last year, Bulgin supported Jesuit High School in California in the competition. The team finished third place Explorer Overall Champions, Explorer Technical Documentation Champion and second place Inaugural Microsoft Azure ROV Machine Learning Challenge.
To request your free MATE 2020 International ROV competition samples please visit the Connectivity Community.
To view the full catalogue of connectors and all other products please visit the Bulgin website.