Photo by Kim Miller
Story by Gurinder Khaira
True engineering mandates venturing beyond the fundamentals and controlled environments of the classroom, and into the realm of application! Applying what students learned was the primary motivation behind establishing our Engineering Renaissance (“ER”) Club at Clovis Community College. The club is comprised of and led by engineering students dedicated to applying their technical acumen to specific engineering endeavors.
During the Fall semester, the ER Club focused on Assistive Technology. In the Spring semester, they focused on the Marine Advanced Technology Education Remotely Operated Vehicle (“MATE ROV”) World Championship. MATE ROV hosts an annual international competition that took place in Kingsport, Tennessee in June. In simple terms, think "remotely controlled underwater robot."
Students have convened globally to participate in various underwater ROV/engineering challenges including tasks that served as analogs to taking actions to protect the environment, coral reef data collection and analysis, collecting samples, debris removal, performing rescue/recovery operations, mechanical operations, and other technical tasks.
This competition is not unknown territory for the multitalented ER Club team's CEO, Daniel Silguero, who has previously competed in high school and ranked in the MATE ROV competitions. Daniel is not alone here in terms of talent, as he is joined by Robert Voss (CTO), Lauren McLaury (co-president), Rana Eyit (co-president), Maxine Catahan (safety lead), Alex Brezny (photogrammetry/float software), Olaf Martinez (design/mechanical), Gevorg Kareyan (design/mechanical), and Alex Liang (GUI Software). They were also joined by myself: advisor/instructor/cheerleader. These students have backgrounds in robotics, circuits, programming, 3-D modeling/printing, photogrammetry, and more!
Further, the students assumed the role of a first-year company named Crush Depth in the MATE ROV competition. Their robot was named Percy. Students from all over the world competed at this international event including students from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, China, Germany, India, France, Mexico, Italy, Turkey, UAE, etc. Thank you to Club Advisor Gurinder Khaira for your time and commitment in leading these outstanding students.
Students won in the MATE ROV World Championship include:
Robert Voss
Crush Depth - This is an award that recognizes a team that was outstanding in helping others (our students loaned out our robot for other teams to compete in the group challenge); they also loaned out their tools and materials.
Crush Depth - the highest award that they could win in the competition.
List of Engineering Renaissance Club students that attended the competition:
Although these students did not attend the competition, they worked tirelessly over the past year to assist the team prepare for the competition:
