Team Oceanus, Sea-Tech 4-H Club

06/24/2017

Greetings! It's been a long time since we've posted. We wanted to share with you the latest news. Our sister team is getting ready to drop their ROV in the waters of Long Beach City College for their second and final run in the 2017 MATE ROV Competition. Here's a link to the live video stream. Alternatively, MATE also has a great live feed on their FB page that shows what's happening on the pool deck. Also, we have started a general club page. We are just getting going. Please "like" and follow along. Sea-Tech 4H Club

The Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) Center is a national partnership of organizations working to improve marine technical education and in this way help to prepare America's future workforce for ocean occupations. Headquartered at Monterey Peninsula College (MPC) in Monterey, California,...

05/24/2016

Hello Team Oceanus followers! We are thrilled to announce that Sea-Tech 4-H Club is sending not one, but TWO teams to Houston for the MATE international competition! This year, we are extremely fortunate to be able to compete at NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Lab in the Houston, Texas area! This is where they train ASTRONAUTS! It's home to the largest pool in the world and our ROVs will be diving into that incredible space. It's been a lot of work and we are thrilled to be a part of this challenging competition. We invite you to follow our new team pages. The members of last year's Oceanus Team have transitioned to 2 new teams. Cadmus and Psi. https://www.facebook.com/Team-Cadmus-1004085602990985/

Here you'll find regular updates about Sea-Tech's 2018 NarcoMedusae ROV as well as news on upcoming competitions or events.

08/15/2015

Dispatching from the Skagit County Fair. We are having a great time talking to the public about our 4H club, our ROV and our fantastic experiences in Newfoundland, Canada at the MATE ROV Competition in June. Come see us and your kids can take a turn running the ROVs in the pool.

08/08/2015

Locals! Come say hello, chat with us about ROV's and our recent trip to Newfoundland for the MATE ROV Competition while we wash your car.

Happening NOW at Washington Federal 1020 S Burlington Blvd (near Fred Meyer) till 4 pm. This is for our entire Sea-Tech 4H club. Underwater ROV's are expensive to build! Every little dollar helps.

06/28/2015

It's 2 am here and we are just winding up our evening. We had an amazing day today MATE ROV Competition. We had a mission in the flume tank, which is under current. It's a very challenging mission because the ROV is constantly fighting current while needing to perform detailed tasks with our claw. We have not been able to use our ROV in any conditions involving current, so it was great to see how well it performed. We had to open and close several valves, most requiring 3.5 rotations...all without getting tangled up in our tether and not getting blown "off course". Our team performed amazingly. The evening ended at the awards banquet where we got to say goodbye to many new friends from around the world. Then we came back to our dorm to dismantle the ROV in preparation for the long flight home. We appreciate your support!

06/27/2015

We are live right now in the flume tank. Check online for the live stream.

06/27/2015

Quick update before we head to bed (we are 4.5 hours ahead of time). We had a huge day. It began with sales presentation (30 min engineering evaluation in a room with 3 judges who are industry professionals from all over the USA and Canada). Yes...it's intense and exciting and stressful and a great opportunity for growth for our young students. We then had 2 pool missions: ice tank and "wave" tank, the later of which was to simulate an offshore oil drilling platform. Our ROV did very well. No system failures (!!) and some unavoidable challenges due to extremely challenging missions with conditions that we can not duplicate at home for practice. We had excellent team work throughout the events of the day and the students are having a blast. We had a great time meeting people from other countries and also from close to home. Everyone enjoyed a long night time walk in a very lively and bustling and cold (we donned mittens and hats and warm jackets!) downtown St. John's for a late dinner. We wrap up our MATE ROV Competition with one more pool run in the Flume Tank tomorrow morning, which has current running through it, presenting yet another challenge for us to work through. Thanks for reading and your support!

06/26/2015

We are in the ice tank on our pool mission right now for MATE ROV Competition. Security is tight at this research facility, so only 6 team members and one mentor are allowed into the building. No one else even goes into the facility. Fortunately, all of our team members get in. The rest of us are across the street watching via low visibility video so we can't report much. We heard it's very cold in there: -2 Celsius. We will update later. Thanks for following along!

06/26/2015

It was a fabulous day today for Team Oceanus. It started off early in the morning at opening ceremonies for the MATE ROV Competition, where 60+ teams from 15 countries gathered for team roll call and a review of missions. After that, we moved our ROVs to the Marine Institute for official safety evaluations. We can not enter the pools without thorough safety protocols and inspections by industry professionals. We passed through 2 checks and got to test our ROV briefly in the water to check for power and ballast. Waiting in line with teams from Macau, Egypt, Hong Kong and USA was really interesting. The official events of the day ended with an incredible evening at The Rooms where we got to relax and chat with competitors as well as tour their natural history and art museum. We returned to our dorms late at night to practice our 20 min long sales presentation and plan for the next day. Tomorrow: 2 of 3 pool missions and our sales presentation. Thank you for your support!

06/25/2015

We went hiking along the North Atlantic coast in Newfoundland and this is how many people we saw.

06/25/2015

Today we officially registered for the MATE ROV Competition and worked on putting our ROV back together after having to dismantle it to fit onto the plane. It was a pretty major undertaking right there in the Vancouver, BC airport taking parts off to loose enough weight so that they would allow it onboard and re-weighing it using their scales. We then had to figure out how to fit those parts into our very fully packed "carry on" luggage. Once all that worked out, we had to worry about how those mildly weapon-shaped metal parts in our backpacks and bags would look to the security folks scanning and letting us proceed to our gate. It all worked out and now we prepare for an early morning at opening ceremonies. Here is a picture from today and a couple more from recent adventures. Thanks for your support!

06/24/2015

Team Oceanus was the first team to check into Memorial University accommodations for MATE ROV Competition. We have been mixing work with fun and exploring Newfoundland. Every day has been incredible.