UW ROV team head to international competition
If you're from any major, we'll find a place for you
By Nancy Gohring
UW TODAY (May 31, 2012)
News and Information
Since he was 12 years old and successfully talked his way onto an underwater robotics club for kids aged 13 and up, Trevor Uptain has been building robots of the kind used by oceanographers and industry.
Now a sophomore at the University of Washington, he helped start a club that in just four months has already qualified to participate in an international underwater robotics competition coordinated by the Marine Advanced Technology Education Center and taking place in Florida next month.
But unlike most other competitors, this team of 16 UW undergraduates from a variety of disciplines has decided to over-engineer their underwater robot so that oceanographers at the UW can use it in the field. While the competition requires the robot to descend 5.2 meters, or 17 feet, to the bottom of an indoor swimming pool, the UW team is designing its device to be used in saltwater and withstand pressure to a depth of at least 100 meters.