"This year’s challenge was to build an underwater remotely operated vehicle resilient enough to complete tasks from the depths of the Gulf of Mexico to the reaches of our solar system on Europa, one of Jupiter’s many moons. The Sharks Robotics ROV team had the pleasure of presenting the Hammerhead ROV to the panel of judges at our regional MATE competition in April 2016. The Hammerhead ROV features a pneumatic claw, temperature sensor with microcontroller board, three high-definition cameras and four motors all encapsulated within a small footprint and lightweight design. The form factor and capabilities of the Hammerhead ROV is an incredible feat for our construction and design team consisting of Antony Kahil, Aristides Milios, Gordon Stevens and Fady Toulany. Being piloted from shore by Antony Kahil and Ethan Title, this advanced suite of tools enabled the robot to complete many tasks underwater from collecting samples to reading the temperature of a seafloor vent. Participating in the business model and underwater challenge based MATE competition for our second time, we received the “Excellence in Entrepreneurship” award for the second year in a row, boasting the highest business score that the regional competition organizers had ever seen. This achievement marks a huge success for the business team, the core of which was comprised of Alex Gillis and Andy Samman. The 2015/2016 season was extremely successful and resulted in the team learning a lot through the additions of pneumatics and a microcontroller to the Hammerhead ROV. We are looking forward to next year and recruiting personnel to the Sharks Robotics team as our Grade 12 students move on."
- Alex Gillis, Grade 12
