water Research Robot team represented Alpena well at the International Remotely Operated Vehicle Competition in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, over the last week in June, placing seventh against 61 teams ranging from junior high students to college seniors. The team competed in the Ranger division against 34 teams from around the world, and by finishing seventh, continued its four-year streak of closing in on becoming the best underwater engineering team in the world.

Savannah Thomsom, lead engineer of the team, was one of only four engineers selected to receive an Engineering Design Presentation Award during closing ceremonies because of her development and presentation of the ROV during the team sales presentation.

The UR2 team placed first in the Marine Advanced Technology Education Great Lakes Regional ROV Competition in Alpena in May, and by taking home the regional title, it was able to compete in the international competition. This year the competition focused on the role ROVs play in science and industry in the Arctic, where they have to conduct research under the ice and maintain offshore oil and gas fields. T

he team also was able to participate in ROV product demonstrations that require them to pilot their vehicle to complete tasks like counting species, sampline organisms, deploying scientific instruments, collecting iceberg data, replacing sections of oil pipeline, testing grounding for oil platforms and controlling the flow of oil through a pipeline. Besides doing those tasks, they must prepare technical documentation for their vehicle, provide a sales presentation to a panel of judges and create a marketing display.

The team’s mentor, Bob Thomson, said some of the highlights of the competition included comments from last year’s competitors who competed in the international competition in Alpena, sharing positive comments about the town and how welcomed they felt, along with all the support received by complete strangers.

“The team heard many great Alpena experiences from teams all over the world and how they hoped to come back to Alpena again,” Thomson said. “The entire team felt very proud to be in St. John’s representing the Alpena community and Michigan at this world event.”

In order for the team to travel to internationals, they worked hard to fundraise enough for their plane tickets and lodging at the competition.

“The team would like to thank the community of Alpena for the overwhleming support they received in preparing to compete in this year’s competition,” Thomson said. “Many businesses, community agencies and individual families made significant contributions to help the team reach their goal of competing in St. John’s.”

Thomson said the level this team competes at while holding their own is incredible, and that he’s very proud of the team members and their dedication to their goals.

“UR2 faced many situations that challenged them to step away from their original design plan and they did it with skill and competence,” he said. “Most of the teams we compete against have classes during school where they learn about and design ROVs. Our team does it as an afterschool club and learns from our amazing community network. We are extremely lucky to have so much support from our comunity.”

Team pilot Nathan Cosbitt said he thought the best part of the international competition was performing the three different missions in three different tanks.

“I feel like MATE provided and challenged us with real-life missions,” Cosbitt said. “Making it to internationals and finishing seventh in the world is rewarding and definitely worth all the hard work and challenges our team faced during the year preparing.”

Pilots Sam Beatty and Josh Beatty said they enjoyed seeing the variety of engineers and teams at this years competition, and how with experience, their team was able to compete at a much higher level.

“The facilities were unique and it was something we had never seen before,” Sam Beatty said. “The ice tank was extremely different because we were actually working through a real sheet of ice.”

Team Captain Elizabeth Thomson was excited to meet up with old friends from around the world the team had met at previous competitions, and discuss new ideas and solutions with them.

“It’s amazing to sit and talk with students from places like Hong Kong that are working to solve the same things we are,” she said.

Savannah Thomson said it was fun to be in a place where so many people from all different countries who all spoke different languages were all together for the same reason and all had the same interests.

“We are all there for the same reason and that doesn’t make us so different,” Thomson said.

When she found out she had won an engineering award she was elated.

“I was shocked when my name was called because all of the other students that were selected were much older,” she said. “It made me feel like all the hard work was worth it and I am ready to do it all again.”

This was the 14th annual MATE International ROV Competition to take place, with events hosted by the Marine Institute of Memorial University of Newfoundland and the National Research Council’s Ocean, Coastal and River Engineering facility.

Nicole Grulke can be reached via email at ngrulke@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5687. Follow Nicole on Twitter @ng_alpenanews.