Thursday's "Monday Memory"

I know it's not Monday, but it feels like a Monday. Does that count?

In my last post I told you that my team won the regional competition, qualifying us for the international competition in St, John, Newfoundland, Labrador, Canada. Did you know that Newfoundland is actually south of Bellingham, WA, USA? I am about 1 degree longitude north of Newfoundland.

View of the harbour

About one week before the International Competition, we packed our ROV in a wooden crate and shipped it off to Newfoundland. Thankfully it arrived safely, but many other teams were not as lucky. On the way home, however, our ROV arrived as a crumpled cardboard box filled with tangled wires and twisted and broken pvc piping.

There were teams from 8 countries around the world including China, Scotland, Egypt, and Japan. It was overwhelming and exciting to go to the welcoming speech with the top 25 teams from around the world, and I was only 16 years old. Being a girl (AND the team captain) made it even more intimidating since engineering is such a male-dominated field. All of the teams were very friendly. A team from Hong Kong insisted on getting their picture taken with us several times, probably because everyone in my family is really (I was the shortest on there at 5' 11"). We also became really close to the team from Scotland. They begged to take my brothers out for drinks at the bars, but my dad figured that may not be a good idea...

Welcome session

Team from Scotland

Our accommodations were at Memorial University  and the competition was at their Fisheries and Marine Institute. There were three water tanks for us to do our missions in. One was about twice the size of a football field and had a layer of ice on top about 2 inches thick (with a single whole for us to put our ROV through. The second water tank was about 20ft deep and had a current running through it, and the third tank was also about twice the length of a football field and had waves with peaks about 6 inches high. The two longer tanks were designed for driving ships through to test their ability to withstand ice and waves.

Ice tank

Wave tank

Tank with current

The regional competition did not have ice, waves, or current, so this time the missions were a much bigger challenge. We did not score very well on the missions, but we did pretty well with our technical evaluation/presentation. At the final ceremony we were (much to our surprise) granted an award! The "Biggest Bang for the Buck" award since our ROV was cheaply built and still worked pretty well.

Our team (on the right) with a group from Hong Kong

Presentation

Display board

Luckily we had plenty of time to explore the small town of St. John. We hiked up to a old war look out, walked the streets, and visited small shops. We weren't as lucky as some, however, because when we went up the hill to look out over the water it was too foggy for us to see the iceberg out in the bay.

Fort Amherst

Entrance to the harbour

A view of the town from the hilltop

Anglican Cathedral of St John the Baptist

This trip was exhausting, but also very motivating and encouraging. As soon as I got home, I knew I wanted to be able to go to another MATE ROV Competition. But then life happened. high school happened. Being a teenage girl happened. I wanted to run track and not have to miss districts for a robot competition, so for the rest of high school, I choose sports over ROVs. I don't regret that decision, but as soon as I decided not to continue my University athletics after my Freshman year, I knew it was time to get back into ROVs....