News Photo by Crystal Nelson Operated by the University of New Hampshire’s Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping, the Autonomous Surface Vessel Bathymetric Explorer and Navigator, or ASV BEN, heads out of the Rogers City Marina Wednesday. The ASV is using multi-beam sonar to map the bottom of Lake Huron and will map the bottom of the Thunder Bay River Saturday during the annual ROV MATE competition held at the Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center.

ALPENA — A day of hands-on learning awaits more than 12 teams from around the state who will participate in the annual ROV Maritime Advanced Technology Engineering competition Saturday at the Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center.

The competition kicks off at 9:30 a.m., with the first round of competitions scheduled from 10 a.m. to noon and the second round of competitions scheduled from noon to 1 p.m. The awards ceremony will be held at 3:30 p.m.

Each team builds a robot that can be operated remotely and will be judged on how well their remotely operated vessel completes its assigned task.

Students on each team will be operating their vessel from outside of the sanctuary’s 500,000 gallon dive tank while the underwater robot completes its task from inside the tank.

This year’s tasks will be based on the theme of “Innovations for Inshore: ROV Operations in Rivers, Lakes and Dams,” according to Katie Wolf, with the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary.

Wolf said students begin developing their underwater robots early in the year. While those robots might initially start from kits, Wolf said the teams have specialized their robots by the time they get to the competition.

“It gives students an opportunity to develop several different skills,” Wolf said of the importance of the competition. “They learn the science about underwater research and archaeology, but then they also learn the engineering and mechanical skills that go with building an underwater robot.”

Wolf said the teams also have to develop a business plan and make a poster marketing their project, which will also be judged.

The students will also be able to learn how those research, engineering and programming skills translate into the real world.

A group of researchers from the University of New Hampshire’s Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping is partnering with the Ocean Exploration Trust and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to map the bottom of Lake Huron. The researchers began the expedition on Monday and will bring their autonomous surface vessel to the Marine Sanctuary on Saturday.

The public will have the opportunity to watch the autonomous surface vessel from 10 a.m to 3 p.m. Saturday as it scans the Thunder Bay River using its multi-beam sonar, a kind of technology that can map the riverbed by using sound waves. The autonomous surface vessel is also known as BEN, which stands for Bathymetric Explorer and Navigator.

Wolf said the section of the Thunder Bay River they will be mapping is important.

“There is interest from cruise ships and other large vessels coming into the Thunder Bay and one of the things they want to know is exactly what that channel looks like,” she said. “So the work that they will be doing from the Thunder Bay River to the mouth of Lake Huron will help with that mapping.”

The Ocean Exploration Trust, founded by world-renowned oceanographer Bob Ballard, will bring the project to the public through social media and a Nautilus Live event to be held from 3 to 3:30 p.m. at the Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center.

Facebook Live events are scheduled for 3 p.m. on Friday, between 4:30 and 6:30 p.m. May 14, and at 11:30 a.m. on May 16. The Facebook Live events will be held on the NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries’ Facebook page.

Crystal Nelson can be reached at 989-358-5687 or cnelson@thealpenanews.com.

If you go

∫ WHAT: ROV Maritime Advanced Technology Engineering competition

∫ WHEN: Competitions 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday; awards ceremony begins at 3:30 p.m.; research vessel will map Thunder Bay River from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday

∫ WHERE: Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center, 500 W. Fletcher St.

∫ INFO: 12 teams from around the state will be judged on how well their underwater remotely operated vessel performs tasks. An autonomous surface vessel known as BEN, Bathymetric Explorer and Navigator, will scan Thunder Bay River as part of a research project.