Hackley ROV Team Wins Best Product Demo at MATE Regional Competition, Heads to Worlds Championship in June

“This year was my first year in the Upper School class 'Submersible ROV Engineering,' and our team competed in the MATE 2025 Pennsylvania Regional on May 10.

“The Hackley Robotics MATE Team started their day by meeting up at 5:30 a.m. to travel to Villanova University for our MATE Regionals. First, we unpacked and got our robot ROV, called OCTO, checked for safety. Then, we went to our team room, 2001, and left all our belongings there. We set up our poster for everyone to see and included a table with extra components, like a claw prototype and our technical report (and even some candy). We looked at other teams’ robots, and they looked at ours. There were many other competitive ROVs there. 

 

“There was a short opening ceremony, and when that ended, we had to start our first event, called 'Product Demonstration,' where we showed how well our ROV could do in the pool on specific missions set out by MATE. However, this first run of the OCTO did not go as planned. The robot kept disconnecting from Mateo’s computer every 5 minutes, and we only received 30 points. As Mateo said, 'It was the worst thing that could have happened.'

“We finished that run feeling defeated and confused. But Coach Boviero pointed out that the same occurrence happened a few years ago, on that same side of the pool that we were on. All that the team had to do was switch their power source from the one that the competition provided to our own. But we did not have time to dwell on it; our engineering presentation was about to start.

“We rushed to our room to get our blazers on to pitch our ROV to the judges and prepare for their Q&A, but time was tight. Thankfully, We made it on time, but in the process of rushing everyone and the ROV over, we realized mid-presentation that we had forgotten to bring our float profiler, a special part of the mission tasks. However, overall, the presentation went very well — everyone spoke and knew what they were talking about. We appeared prepared and confident.

“As soon as that was over, we had to rush again to our second pool product demonstration. This time, we used our own power source and the ROV worked. It didn’t just work, it worked amazingly! We completed four tasks successfully and received 115/160 points. This was the most points that any team had received thus far in the competition. With our newfound confidence, we went back to the room to relax and eat lunch.

“We had to wait for a few hours for all the teams to finish competing, and, during this time, we got to talk to the other teams about our robots and school in general. After that, it was time for the Awards Ceremony. As we waited, they finally called our school and team name! We received first place for best product demonstration, or best performing ROV of the competition, and we got second place overall. The scores were so close that our team was nominated for and accepted to compete in the 2025 MATE Worlds Championship this June in Michigan! For a team that is more than 50% ninth graders who are new to ROV, we have accomplished so much!”