Singapore American School Students Compete at NASA Lab

(Newswire.net — June 24, 2016) Singapore, Singapore — Singapore American School has qualified for the finals of the prestigious MATE International ROV Competition held at NASA in Houston, Texas. The 15th annual Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) International ROV competition takes place from June 23 to June 25, 2016 at the NASA Johnson Space Center’s Neutral Buoyancy Lab. This competition challenges K-12, community college, and university students from all over the world to design and build remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) to tackle missions modeled after scenarios from the ocean workplace.

Singapore American School is the only Singaporean school selected for this event in Houston from the Asian Regional Competition held in Hong Kong. This has been a result of hard work and determination for over five months by the international high school’s robotics team, which wishes to spread awareness of robotics and motivate other Singapore teams to participate in this prestigious robotics competition in future years. The students in the team competing in Houston are Alyssa Garner, Natalie Weinrauch, Sae Jin Jang, James Quek, Sohit Gatiganti, Colin Clark, Rohan Sahu, Alex Lem, Dalen Ward, Aaron Cruz, and Vijayendra Jagtap. They are presenting a technical poster, a technical paper, sitting for an engineering interview with a panel of engineers from Lockheed Martin and Shell, and competing in the pool against 40 robotics teams from around the world.

Singapore American School’s robotics program regularly sends students to regional and international robotics competitions, also including the FIRST Robotics Regional Competition most recently held in Sydney, Australia. Under the mentorship of teachers Bart Millar and Meredith White, their One Degree North student team has travelled extensively to put their technical skills to the test. This week, the 2016 MATE competition is highlighting how technologies developed for use in the harsh ocean environment can also be used in outer space and vice versa. 

The MATE center uses underwater robots, also called remotely operated vehicles, to teach science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and inspire students to learn about technical careers. Partnering with the Marine Technology Society ROV Committee, MATE created the ROV competition to engage students in STEM and expose them to science and technology careers, to encourage students to develop and apply technical, teamwork, and problem solving skills, to provide the funds, materials, and technical expertise needed to support student learning, and also to provide industries with skilled individuals who can fill workforce needs. 

 

Student Contact:

Sohit Gatiganti
Singapore American School, Grade 9 Student
gatiganti44914@sas.edu.sg
+65 9489 9799