Creating robots for the most extreme environments.
The Remotely Operated underwater Vehicle (ROV) team was founded as a committee within Purdue IEEE Student Organization in 2008 with a small but dedicated group of five students. Today, the team's mission is to foster technical and professional skills of its members by designing, constructing, and testing an innovative underwater vehicle to compete in the MATE Center International ROV Competition.
2021 Team at Competition
ROV Sub-Optimal
The ROV team is comprised of both engineering and non-engineering students working collaboratively on a hands-on project from the vehicle's design and prototyping phase, to its construction and testing, and ultimately competition performance. The team fosters a multidisciplinary spirit so that the best ideas may come forth. In addition to the mission, the MATE competition also requires a professional presentation, public display poster, and technical documentation.
Because the vehicle requires excellence in design, construction, and presentation, the team members are themselves multidisciplinary collaborators and experts in their own discipline. Members learn to communicate clearly with each other and with clients while managing their own project responsibilities. Through various outreach events during the year, the team aims to inspire future generations to enter STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields.
For more current and past information view the links to the left or contact us as rov@purdueieee.org. The ROV team will be accepting new members at the beginning of each semester.
August, 2022 Update
Purdue ROV competed in Long Beach, CA at the 20th MATE World Championship. After arriving in California, the team reassembled the robot that had been carefully broken down and packaged for air travel. Over the next several days, though, the team had to rush to repair the electronics stack after the hotel was struck by lightning (yes, really). Luckily, with some Arduinos bought nearby, the team was able to rewrite new communications code from scratch in just two days. This effectively replaced the functionality of our ESC interface boards that had stopped communicating properly with the rest of the electronics stack.
The essential repairs were completed just in time for our last mission run. Overall, we placed 10th internationally and 2nd in the engineering technical presentation! The team left competition eager for next season, already working to plan our next vehicle.
The team, newly under the leadership of Peter Salisbury as captain, looks forward to returning to the shop, digging into a new vehicle design, and welcoming new team members. See you on campus!
Peter Salisbury
Mechanical Engineering and Applied Physics
Team Captain