Deep sea innovations

What can possibly help the oil spill crisis in the Gulf of Mexico? As the Ocean Explorer website states, ROVs, or remotely operated vehicles, are “[…] unoccupied, highly maneuverable underwater robots operated by a person aboard a surface vessel.” So far, such ROVs have been used to halt the flood of oil. They range in size and can attach to a ship with cables. Now more than ever, it is of great importance for this generation of young engineers to gain interest in ROVs, as it is now being shown just how useful they can be in current society. Not only can ocean engineering technology help to drill oil, but it can also help to clean it up.

The ninth annual Marine Advanced Technology Education International ROV competition, sponsored by the Marine Technology Society, is spreading awareness about underwater engineering.
This competition at the University of Hawaii is open to middle school, high school, and college students. For the competition, the U.H. swimming pool is transformed into an imaginary underwater volcano, where the students unleash ROVs and collect information. Between gathering samples of organisms, taking sensor readings, and plotting data, the students have their work cut out for them.

Drew Michel, the chairman of the ROV executive committee, states that “The most difficult part of the competition is for the students to understand how to make things work underwater.” Indeed, a machine that functions properly on dry land could prove to be completely useless in the water. As students face the challenges of the competition, they can begin to understand just how difficult it is to design machines such as offshore turbines and oil drillers.

So, as the oil continues to spill in the deep blue sea, at least we can rest assure that students are studying machines that might someday help in a similar crisis.