ROV competitions for students: improving marine technology education and helping to meet workforce needs

What started as a back-of-the-envelope type of idea to engage students in marine technology and connect them to marine industries has turned into a program that involves more than 300 students, working in teams, to design and build ROVs for missions based on real-world problems, with more than 50 organizations and 45 technical professionals contributing to make the program a success. When the MATE Centre and the Marine Technology Society´s (MTS) ROV Committee came together to establish the framework for a student ROV competition program, we had no idea that it would grow into something that involved so many students, educators, employers, and working professionals.