An B´ÎÔª student who is passionate about building remotely operated vehicles was recently recognized by the Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) Center. Jason Julius, mechanical engineering major, was the recipient of the Martin Klein MATE Mariner Medal, presented at the 2017 MATE international ROV competition.

B´ÎÔª’s Underwater ROV (remotely operated underwater vehicle) team was ranked 16th in the competition, which took place in Long Beach, California at the end of June. In addition to Julius, team members included electrical engineering majors Woodrow Walker, Robert Gillig and Allison Ahern.

Participants were tasked with building an ROV that could serve the Port of Long Beach by assisting with the installation of a Hyperloop system to expedite the delivery of goods and streamline commerce; conducting maintenance on the port’s water and light show to guarantee uninterrupted entertainment; identifying and collecting samples of contaminated sediment then remediating the area to protect the health of people and the environment; and identifying the contents of containers that fell off of a cargo ship into the harbor and mapping the accident site to ensure the safety of the port and its operations.

The Martin Klein MATE Mariner Medal is given to an individual or team that shows an outstanding passion, not just for winning, but for the whole competition process. This includes a genuine interest in the mission and a penchant for a lifetime interest in this field.

The MATE competition challenges K-12, community college, and university students from all over the world to design and build ROVs to tackle missions modeled after scenarios from the ocean workplace. The competition’s class structure of beginner, intermediate, and advanced complements the education pipeline by providing students with the opportunity to build upon their skills – and the application of those skills – as they engineer increasingly more complex ROVs for increasingly more complex mission tasks.