On Wednesday, April 23, 18 Milton students will participate in the first Remotely Operated Underwater Vehicle (ROV) contest. The contest, Lost on the Titanic: Rusticles or Bust, will be held at Cambridge, Rindge and Latin School in Cambridge, MA.

Students worked for 3-weeks with faculty sponsor Tom Gagnon to design and build a remotely operated underwater vehicle. The tethered submarine will perform a 'search and rescue' mission on a Titanic mock-up at the bottom of a swimming pool. Each team has 20 minutes to collect 'C probes' of different point values depending on their location within the sunken ship. A 12-volt battery is used to power the sub; Milton’s ROV includes an underwater camera and three motors.

In addition to competing in the underwater mission challenge—recovering “scientific data collection devices”—teams will be evaluated on their ability to effectively communicate an understanding of their vehicles’ design and construction through project reports, poster displays and interviews with the competition judges.

The New England Regional ROV Contest is one of three regional contests feeding into the 2003 National Student ROV Competition June 19-21 at MIT.