HKUST team bags Championship in 11th HK/Asia IET/MATE Underwater Robot Challenge

The HKUST ROV team consisting of 14 undergraduate students from the School of Engineering, has once again secured the 1^st place in the Explorer class of the 11^th Hong Kong/Asia Regional IET/MATE Underwater Robot Challenge held on the 16^th - 17^th April 2016, in King George V International School. The victory sees the team to qualify and proceed to the international competition in this coming June which will be held at the NASA Neutral Buoyancy Lab in Houston, USA.

   Competition simulated industrial underwater robot tasks which include exploration, biological sampling, visual inspection and maintenance of subsea infrastructures. Each team was also required to defend their engineering decisions which was evaluated through a 25-pages technical report, an engineering presentation and a poster display. 

The team is supervised by Prof. Tim Woo. After 5 months of design, manufacturing and testing, the team conceived the Orca, their latest ROV. The Orca introduced a new suite of features including a fully modular electronics system and custom pneumatics manipulators which make the vehicle highly mission-optimized. With these design innovations, the Orca topped the mission run in this regional competition, bested different teams from Hong Kong, Malaysia and China.

“Working in the HKUST ROV team has offered me a platform to broaden my horizon and have a quick look at what happens on the other side of the world. Processing a global outlook is the first step to becoming a global citizen. Not only did I gain the skills in building a robot and knowledge in hardware but also the way to practice my time management and communication skills., said by Xinjie Yao Abby, a new member of the HKUST ROV team. Another new team member, Hongseo Yoon also mentioned, “Besides those memorable experiences, my participation in the ROV team allowed me to explore the field of ROV development at a very advanced level and this has definitely facilitated the growth in my interest in underwater robotics.”

The HKUST ROV Team is a 6 times consecutive champion of the Hong Kong/Asia Regional IET/MATE Underwater Robot Challenge and has received 8 top awards in the international competition for 6 consecutive years. A sincere appreciation went to RS Components for sponsoring the high quality electronic components and professional equipment. RS Components has been sponsoring the HKUST Robotics Team for 6 consecutive years.

The Asian regional competition was organized by The Institution of Engineering and Technology, Hong Kong (IET HK), the largest overseas branch of the UK's largest professional engineering institution and also the world's largest professional engineer awarding body.

The international competition has been organized by Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) Center for the past fourteen years in association with the Marine Technology Society ROV Committee. The international competition brings an audience of experts in the marine industry as innovations usually emerge from international teams.