Results from the 2003 MATE National ROV competition at MIT
June 19-22, 2003
SECOND PLACE WINNERS are....Team MPC!!!
PLUS, Best Innovative Design Award!
For the second year in a row, MPC’s illustrious ROV builders have made quite a “splash” at the National ROV competition (held by our very own MATE center at MIT in June), overcoming a number of surprise obstacles to pull off a close second place finish, AND receive the coveted "SharkPedo" Best Innovative Design Award.
COMPETITION INFO
General
information
Description of
scenario and competition classes
COMPETITION RESULTS
Final
standings/score chart
Awards
PHOTOS FROM
Construction Phase
Testing Phase
Competition @ MIT
Team MPC is
Aaron Barchie
Matt Bennett
Matt Gardner, Captain
Gregory (Greg) Kaufman, Co-Captain
Joshua (Josh) Mickler
Charles Ransom
Kyle Sheijak
Frank Barrows, Instructor
Tom Rebold, Co-Instructor
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Team MPC would like to thank the following contributors: Jill Zande and the MATE Center for inspiration and seed money, the MPC Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. Gardner, Mr. and Mrs. Kaufman, the irreplaceable Scott Cote, Penelope Ross, Stolt Offshore for their generous cash prize award, and the Borland Software Corporation, (Bob Kohn, Tracy Juran and Dale Fuller) major contributors who gave us the timely financial and morale boost to pull it off--our most amazed and special thanks!
SEE ALSO
2002 Discovery Underwater Battlebot Contest (MPC 1st Place) !!!
Coming June 2004...
2004 MATE ROV NATIONAL COMPETION
Tentatively scheduled at Scripps Institute of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA
Register for one of the following Spring MPC companion classes:
MATE 296.5 Submersible Technology Competition
Lec Fri 6-730, Lab by arrangement, AUTO 101
ENGR 196.2 Robot Projects Lec/Lab
Sat 12-4, Auto 101
Field Report, post Competition:
Some of the more dramatic elements: 1) finding out the day before the competition that our bot was routed mistakenly to Shrewsbury (60 mi West--solved by an emergency shuttle and a team expedition to the local Airborne office in a seedy part of Boston), 2) a team member spraining his ankle on the subway the morning of the event (& deciding to tough it out for the competition) 3) an air compressor that decided to quit at the most critical moment possible, the lift phase of the challenge (they were trying to extract a 10 lb stranded bot from a room in the Titanic).
Fortunately, as happened last year, the team adapted quickly to adversity. After Josh played with the compressor a few minutes it finally came back on, long enough to get the bot out of the Titanic and halfway to the surface--before the air bladder (motorcycle inner tube) burst! Down went the bot, with cargo attached. Greg, the pilot, struggled to lift it up on thruster power alone, eventually bringing it to the surface in twelve minutes and twenty seconds (their record was about three minutes during practice). Being the first team to actually complete the task, we were euphoric. It turned out we were not the only ones with technical problems that day. MPC held the lead for most of the competition, only losing out to Lake Superior State towards the end of the day. Their winning time was: ten minutes and twenty seconds, a mere 2 minutes quicker. But, on the other hand, we trounced MIT (my alma mater, whose overly ambitious bot failed to function in the water!!)
Just wait til next year!
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