A topside view from the 2025 MATE Worlds Competition

by Rachel McDonald, ROV Program Coodinator, Dauphin Island Sea Lab
group at mate worlds
The GEARS, Inc ROV team and Northern Gulf Competition Coordinator, Rachel McDonald, at the 2025 MATE Worlds opening ceremonies. (Courtesy Rachel McDonald, DISL)

Windy, wet, and cool were the conditions participants encountered during the 2025 Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) Worlds ROV Competition this year in Alpena, Michigan. Yet the excitement, energy, and drive of the students weren’t diminished in the slightest as they showcased their Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) throughout the weekend in pool demos and engineering presentations.

This year’s theme was “UN Decade of the Ocean, MATE Year of the Great Lakes: Exploring, Monitoring, and Protecting Our Water World,” and it challenged teams to understand the conditions of working in a freshwater environment. The pool demo missions reflected some of those real-world challenges as the student ROVs were tasked with inspecting shipwrecks, deploying a moored buoy with sensors, and collecting and analyzing water samples.

While this was my first time attending a World Championship in Alpena, this was the second time a MATE World Championship had been held at this unique location and venue. The windy and wet weather was definitely a big factor for teams this year, as the pool demos were held in a large, outdoor test tank, which in a previous lifetime was used as part of the operations of the paper mill that is now converted into the NOAA Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary facilities.

outdoor test tank
Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuaries outdoor test tank used for pool demonstrations. (Courtesy Rachel McDonald, DISL)

The 2025 MATE Worlds competition was a meeting of the best of the best student ROVs from around the world and included three different class levels - RANGER, PIONEER, and EXPLORER - that differ by grade level as well as skill level, which is also often reflected in increasingly complex robots. RANGER class teams are mostly high school level students who qualify to attend by winning at a regional level, while Pioneer and Explorer class teams are community college, technical college, or 4-year university students who must submit videos and documents in advance to qualify and only attend the World Championship.

The DISL ROV Competition, known as the Northern Gulf Coast regional, was fortunate enough to send two teams this year - our first-place winning team, GEARS, Inc. from Montgomery, AL, and an additional team that was nominated to attend, the Trojan Triremes from Carrollton, GA. These teams competed against 36 other RANGER teams from around the World and finished in 15th and 33rd place overall, respectively.

My role this year at Worlds was twofold - man the outdoor practice pool and support the two Northern Gulf Coast RANGER teams. At the practice pool, where I spent much of my time, teams tested ROV buoyancy, hydraulics, and the occasional vertical profiling float that was also one of the mission tasks. It was incredible to see the variety of ROV designs and innovative solutions many used to solve the pool mission tasks or to solve issues with the ROV itself!

One of my absolute favorite things to witness at these competitions are the students learning from and sharing with one another. Especially getting to witness the journey of our students from competing and networking at our regional to seeing them compete and network in this global community. It’s inspiring and makes my role as a coordinator very rewarding knowing that not only are the students learning and soaking in critical STEM skills, but they are learning to communicate and collaborate, which are not only important job skills but life skills.

Jill Zande, the MATE Executive Director at MTS, said it best during the opening ceremonies, “It’s about the journey, not the destination.”

And that’s exactly what we hope the students that compete leave with - a sense of accomplishment - even in the event of ROV failure-, new tools for their toolbox (STEM or life skills), and the memories and connections they made during this competition that will potentially open new doors and make them into tomorrow’s leaders and innovators.

trojan triremes team
The Trojan Triremes from Carrollton, GA ROV Team and Northern Gulf Coast Competition Coordinator, Rachel McDonald, following the Triremes 2nd pool demonstration. (Courtesy Rachel McDonald, DISL)

For teams interested in joining in on this experience in the 2025/2026 school year, the 2026 competition theme and briefing will be released from MATE early this fall on the MATE website, with the full competition manual coming out mid to late November.

The 2026 Northern Gulf Coast Regional will be held April 24-26, 2026, at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab campus, and registration for the competition will open in late January/early February 2026. Teams interested in participating can reach out to the DISL Competition Coordinator, Rachel McDonald, for more information on how to get started and regional requirements.

If you want to get your feet wet in ROVs, but aren’t ready to dive into an ROV Competition, the Discovery Hall Programs has several other opportunities available for educators, including our Academic Year Field Trip Class, ROVing the Gulf, and our GoROVing! The Loaner Kit Program allows educators to borrow a classroom set of ROVs for classroom use. Check out these opportunities and more on our STEM Programs page at https://www.disl.edu/dhp/stem/. To learn more about the Northern Gulf Coast Regional, please visit https://www.disl.edu/dhp/competitions/mate/.

To learn more about the MATE ROV Competition, please visit https://materovcompetition.org/.