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petitions before qualifying for the Interna-tional event. This year the 50-plus teams ranged in age from the sixth-graders of Thunder Bay, Michigan, to undergraduate students from Purdue University. Compet- itors arrived from Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Singapore, Egypt, U.K., Macao, Venezuela, China and Hong Kong with plenty of U.S. and Canadian teams as well. Representing home schools, colleges, uni- versities, public and private schools, even 4-H clubs.The SeaTech Robotics 4-H club from Mount Vernon, Washington has attended the MATE competition every year since 2007. Club leadership includes three en-gineers and one orthopedic surgeon with a background in biomechanics. Club orga- nizer Lee McNeil, an engineer with Boe-ing who personally spends 30-40 hours a month helping the students, said ?All of us have a desire to introduce these kids to opportunities that will greatly improve their futures. These experiences give them a glimpse into what they could do if they are willing to nish school and work really hard.? Local businesses donate services to the team for water-jetting, machining and manufacturing, but all the work is done us- ing CAD models created by the students themselves. McNeil said, ?Students can put in be-tween 200-500 hours.? One of his teams logged over 100 hours of pool time just practicing for the mission. It paid off. The SeaTech Explorer team earned the high- est Mission score in this year?s event and placed third overall. Frugal teams with little or no sponsor- ship proudly reuse components from prior years? vessels spending as little as a few hundred dollars. Large, established teams with big sponsors may invest over $10,000, although much of that is in donated ser- vices. Most teams? nancial investment ranged somewhere in the $700-$800 price range according to MATE staff. The staff bestowed this year?s ?Bang for the Buck? award to the Explorer Team from Linn- Benton Community College and the Rang- er Team from Columbia Virtual Academy. The award is given to the team who spent www.seadiscovery.com Marine Technology Reporter 67MTR #7 (66-81).indd 67MTR #7 (66-81).indd 678/23/2013 9:07:28 AM8/23/2013 9:07:28 AM
