How do you re-imagine a project that’s already highly innovative?

That’s exactly what the pandemic forced MATE ROV Competition Founder/President Jill Zande and her colleagues to do.

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And the result? A highly-successful global competition, with a new, VR component!

Now, what is MATE? If you didn’t get to hear our earlier interview, that’s an acronym for “Marine Advanced Technology Education”. The MATE Center, in Monterey, prepares America’s future workforce for ocean-related careers. Jill, who is the Associate Director of the MATE Center, created the MATE ROV (remote-operated vehicle) challenge in 2002.

After last year’s hiatus, due to the pandemic, the MATE ROV challenge returned. Jill and her partners had only sixmonths to coordinate a version of the competition that would allow student teams from all over the world to compete safely.

Working in partnership with the Marine Technology Society, the MATE Center came up with both a new “telepresence” category, and a virtual world, in Altspace, in which teams could compete.

And today, the 2022 MATE ROV Competition is in the planning stages–and just about to post entry information for students who’d like to compete next year!

Jill talked about the process of re-creating her unique underwater robotics competition remotely, offered some resources for students and educators who’d like to learn more and discussed her first foray into virtual reality.

On this edition of Over Coffee® we cover:

• How Jill and her colleagues carried off a safe in-person event with virtual components;

• Their solution to the problem: how would teams showcase their vehicles remotely?;

• The partnership that enabled the MATE Center to add the VR element of the competition;

• How Jill, as a “reluctant messiah” , came to realize the value of virtual reality (hint: no headset needed!);

• The virtual-reality platform that appealed to Jill’s younger audience;

• How Jill and her colleagues incorporated the VR world into their live event at East Tennessee State University;

• What would be involved for a team participating, remotely, in a future MATE ROV Competition;

• A preview of opportunities for teams that can’t travel in the future–and a hint of some new enhancements!;

• The globally-minded theme behind the tasks students completed in 2021 (and how this theme will carry forward in the future);

• How the U.N. “Decade of the Ocean” will be reflected in future MATE ROV mission tasks;

• Some of the task areas on which the 2022 competition will focus;

• An exciting real-world expedition which will be a part of these tasks!;

• What you’ll see, in the virtual world, and what some of the student teams created;

• A partnership plus scholarship opportunities–the Marine Technology Society!;

• Where to find resources and instructions to start creating your own virtual worlds;

• How Jill, as a marine scientist and mom, sees her daughter growing into her future career, and the skills she’s learned from ROV design and building;

• Some of the exciting ways in which the MATE ROV Competition is currently growing, globally;

• How you can support MATE ROV Competitions and the MATE Center (as well as MATE Inspiration for Innovation, the 501c3 nonprofit of which Jill is President and Executive Director–and you don’t have to be a scientist or roboticist to help!);

• Some of the global problems which MATE ROV Competition plans to have students address, in future task areas.