On June 25th the Purdue ROV team competed at the University of Hawaii in Hilo and placed 4th overall internationally. This put Purdue ahead of such universities as MIT, Georgia Tech, UNC, and Arizona State!  The vehicle, ROV Competence, was a major step forward in technology and build quality from the 2009 vehicle (which took 5^th place), ROV Osprey. ROV Competence was the fastest vehicle at the competition with many unique features.

ROV stands for Remotely Operated Vehicle. Almost always, a ROV is an underwater vehicle designed to complete tasks that are too dangerous, too boring, or too difficult for a human diver to accomplish. ROVs are piloted remotely with signals sent through a tether and have made it as deep as 35,000 feet below the sea floor. By percent growth, it is one of the fastest growing engineering industries (often referred to as ‘Ocean Engineering’).

The Purdue IEEE ROV team is dedicated to competing in the world's largest ROV competition, the MATE (Marine Advanced Technology Education Center) competition. The mission this year simulated underwater volcano study ROVs that can take temperature reading in multiple vents, collect unknown crustaceans for research inside of caves, collect a specific amount of sea-floor bacteria, and deploy long-term monitoring equipment in locations emitting a specific noise.