The  Marine Advanced  Technology  Education (MATE)  Centre  (located  in  California,  USA),  in association  with the  Marine Technology Society's  ROV Committee,  has  been  organising  the International Remote Operated Vehicle Contest  for the past nine years.  This is aimed at school, college and university  students. Depending on sponsorship, the winners in Hong Kong will go to the World Finals in Florida, USA in June 2012.

In addition to being fun and educational, these competitions connect  students  and  educators with professionals from marine industries, and those involved with marine conservation, as well as  to promote the development of technical, problem  solving,  critical thinking, and teamwork skills.

Schools teams will be invited to take part in workshops where they will be given an ROV kit, shown how to design and construct it, and which can then be used as the basis for the contest ROV. We will also be running a number of advanced workshops for those teams interested in sensors, electronics and control of ROVs.

This year there will be a registration fee following MATE Centre guidelines. This will be US$50 (HK$390) and will be collected at registration. The ROV building workshops will cost HK$1000 - and this will include the costs of the ROV kit, book and registration fee. The ROV workshops and the electronics workshops will not be compulsory as in previous years.

This year we planned to hold SCOUT class demonstrations for lower secondary schools  at the Regional Finals, and also some mini-ROV demonstrations for primary schools. Please contact us for further details. (Note: this demonstration will now take place in August as a seperate event)

So far 60 schools have taken part in the event in Hong Kong, with over 300 schools taking part each year around the world.

We have winners - results of the 7th Hong Kong Underwater Robot Challenge 2012