Underwater robotics anyone?

Huddled under a workstation awning to avoid the noonday sun, teammates urged on Consuelo Gonzalez as she frantically tweaked a joystick, her eye locked on a computer screen while, six feet below the surface of the nearby swimming pool, a bread box-sized mass of plastic tubes, circuits, wires, propellers and cameras dodged and swooped. “Almost…there, there, you’ve got it now!” She sighed with frustration as time was called before her team’s robot could successfully hit a tiny target painted on the side of a submerged trash can.

The five-day Marine Advanced Technology Education Center (MATE) Summer Institute for Faculty Development was full of emotion and intense learning for a handful of MESA educators who were there to explore potential development of new MESA community college curriculum in underwater robotics technology.

The institute drew Dr. Derrick Booth of Butte College, Gonzalez of Bakersfield College and Susan Tappero of Cabrillo College to Monterey Peninsula College in early August. The devices, known as ROVs, for Remotely Operated Vehicles, are used in a wide variety of academic and commercial applications, including marine research, exploration, and industry.

“We were looking for something interdisciplinary, that brings all the sciences together, and this is it,” said Tappero. “Here you have electrical engineering, computer science, physics and marine biology all wrapped in a single engineering challenge.” She and the other MESA faculty said they hoped to bring the curriculum back to their host colleges and have their students participate in official MATE-ROV competitions. “This is a powerful way to expose students to exciting new academic and career opportunities that they would otherwise never know was open to them,” added Tappero. “It’s perfect.”

# # #