VLADIVOSTOK, Russian Federation -- Remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) are robots used to complete tasks in underwater environment. Primorye Coast team will compete against more than twenty teams from around the world, using an ROV that they designed and built during the past 6 months.

Each year this competition helps students to improve their skills in different areas: science, technology, engineering, programming, and math, - to solve real problems arising in the World Ocean. This year, the contest focuses on ocean observing systems and the role that ROVs play in the installation, operation, and maintenance of cabled underwater observatories.

Ocean observing systems are high-tech systems collecting information about what is happening in the ocean 24 hours a day. Meteorologists have used data from sensors to monitor and predict weather for the past two decades. Ocean observing systems provide important information on climate (e.g., long-term weather forecasts), sea level change, ocean hazards such as tsunamis and toxic algal blooms, and much more.

Teams will participate in underwater mission tasks, piloting their ROV to install a simulated power and communications "hub" and scientific instruments on the seafloor in order to complete an ocean observatory. They will also remove biofouling organisms from instruments and perform maintenance on moorings, among other tasks. In addition, teams must prepare an engineering report, make a presentation to a panel of judges, and create a poster display.

This is the sixth year that FEFU (Vladivostok) team has participated in the MATE International ROV Competition. The team members are: Angelina Borovskaya, Anton Tolstonogov, Yaroslav Volkov, Maksim Kapshiter, Maksim Fursov, Roman Babaev, Vitalii Nechaev, Vitalii Storozhenko, Vladislav Bolotov.

For more information about the team, please contact Head of the team Sergey Mun at moun@list.ru.

For more information about the ROV Competition, please contact Caroline Brown at (401) 338-89-80, caroline@carolinebrown.com.