Each year, the MATE ROV Competition brings together a global community of learners to tackle real-world problems from around the world. This year, the competition is challenging this community to tackle problems that impact the entire world. Plastics clogging our rivers, lakes, waterways, and ocean, from the surface to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. Climate change raising ocean temperatures, affecting the health of coral reefs. Contaminants in our waterways. You can find these scenarios from Pennsylvania to Portugal, Florida to Australia, the Western Pacific to the Mid-Atlantic, and Indianapolis to Indonesia.

This year the “client” is us – our global community – and the request for proposals (RFP) is simple: design and build a remotely operated vehicle and the necessary sensors and tooling to tackle the realworld problems of plastics in our ocean, climate change’s impact on coral reefs, and the consequences of poor environmental practices on our inland waterways.

In all of three of these cases, your solutions will focus on remediation, meaning, cleaning up rather than fixing the root of these problems. Addressing the actual cause will take involvement from more than just the MATE ROV Competition community; it will take government agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), corporations, small businesses, research institutions, professional societies, and the general public all working together.

Not sure where to begin? Request a teacher workshop for professional development.

graysreef@marinesanctuary.org