University of Liverpool ROV Team

Aim

Our aim is to partake within the MATE international competition, which will be held in Seattle, WA from the 21st to the 23rd June, 2018.

About Us

Founded in 2016, the University of Liverpool Robotics (ULR) Team is an engineering  project team headed by 11 fourth year MEng students. As this is an inter-year project, the team will also include input from 16 third year MEng students. The aim of our project is to design and develop a multi-functional underwater vehicle to compete within the MATE national (Robert Gordon University) and international (Seattle, WA) competition in June 2018.

The MATE ROV Competition, is a platform where student groups from around the world, design and build their own ROV's to complete underwater tasks based on real world challenges. Each year the theme and location of the competition changes.  The 2017 MATE international competition was held in Long Beach, California and included participation from 65 teams, from 17 different countries. The competition is continuously growing in popularity, making it an exciting prospect to become involved!

The 2018 MATE International ROV competition will take place June 21-23 at the Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatic Center in Federal Way, WA, USA with the theme of Jet City: Aircraft, Earthquake and Energy.  For more information of the competition, please visit https://www.marinetech.org/rov-competition/.

This is the first involvement of ULR Dreadnoughts in a MATE ROV Competition, so don’t forget to keep abreast on our progress throughout this exciting journey.

Competition

The competition tests a student’s ability to design, build and utilize an ROV whilst documenting the entire process (focusing on the engineering design) in the form of a detailed report. Teams are also required to create a poster to reflect on the learning outcomes whilst engaging in the hands-on learning activity encouraged within the competition.

Our main aim is to partake within the MATE international competition, which will be held at the Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatic Center in Federal Way, WA, USA from the 21st to 23rd June 2018.

However, we have also set out to build the ROV in time to compete within the MATE national competition, held in Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen in April 2018. 

We are entering our design based on the Explorer class, which is the top class division within the competition. For more information, please refer to MATE 2018 competition product demo. 

Our current Design

Our ROV will be designed to meet the 2018 MATE competition manual, which is set to be released on the  15th of November 2018.  We have an initial design (shown below) that will be revised once the manual is released. 

Social Impact

We also see this project as a great opportunity to engage with the local community, through a series of STEM outreach events. The planned events arranged with local schools and colleges, aim to reach diverse and underrepresented audiences, including young communities within Liverpool; to spark an interest within a STEM subject and develop skills that are crucial to innovation and growth. 

We already have a STEM outreach event scheduled for March 2018 and we are working tirelessly to ensure that we create the most engaging and rewarding day for the students involved!

How we plan to use the funding?

To succeed within this project, we need funds to:

• Purchase all ROV hardware and software, including a propulsion system of 6 thruster's, MyRIO card, amongst an extensive BOM of high cost equipment.
• Manufacture the ROV  in-house and outsource components, where necessary. 
• Fully test the ROV, this includes building test rigs, props and renting a testing facility. 
• Allow the ULR team to compete in both the National and International Competition, covering the expenses of flight tickets and accommodation, estimated at £10000.
• Travel around the UK to Engineering exhibitions and conferences,  to best promote our project. 
• Purchase resources to host ROV themed STEM outreach events for local schools and colleges in the North West of England.

Contact Us

We hope that we can count on you to support our exciting project. For more information, please do not hesitate to contact the team by email at [email protected]. Alternatively, we would more than happily welcome you to our University, to meet the team and further understand our plans, before making any commitments. 

Social Media

Please follow our social media accounts to keep up to date with our exciting project! 

• Website: http://ulr.liverpool.ac.uk/
• Facebook Page: ULR Dreadnoughts
• Instagram: ulrdreadnoughts
• Twitter: @ulrdreadnoughts

This project successfully funded on 5th January 2018