Increasing Community College Participation in the Marine Advanced Technology Education's Remotely Operated Vehicle Competition

海洋先进技术教育（MATE）中心与海洋技术合作举办了一场全球远程操作车辆（ROV）竞赛。这项比赛要求学生建造水下机器人来解决基于现实世界情况的任务。通过这项工作，学生发展和应用一系列的技术、科学和工作技能。这些技能是当今雇主最需要的，包括创造力、适应性、团队合作和沟通能力。社区大学的学生目前在MATE ROV比赛中代表性不足。这个项目在加利福尼亚州蒙特利的蒙特利半岛学院进行，旨在增加参加MATE ROV比赛的社区大学生的数量。预计这种参与将增加拥有科学和工作技能的社区大学学生的数量，这些学生需要进入STEM技术人员队伍并在其中茁壮成长，这是国家经济和安全的关键部门。该项目的总体目标是增加参加MATE ROV竞赛的社区学院的数量。为了实现这一目标，该项目将：1)确定并招募社区学院参与竞赛；2)聘请经验丰富的社区学院教师ROV团队顾问担任导师；3)为社区学院教师准备比赛提供资源和其他支持；4)使用MATE的评估-竞争方法作为竞赛团队的指导和反馈工具，并作为招募新社区大学的工具；5)增加MATE区域协调员工具包中的资源，以协助协调员招募和支持参与竞赛；6)确定并传播可适用于其他本科生研究经历的长期参与竞赛的例子。该项目利用了其他成功的nsf资助项目的经验和最佳实践，包括MATE中心和ITEST Scale-Up。此外，该项目将使用由美国国家科学基金会（NSF）支持的在线本科生研究评估工具EvaluateUR来衡量项目活动的有效性和影响。该项目由先进技术教育计划资助，该计划侧重于为推动国家经济的先进技术领域培养技术人员。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) Center created a global remotely operated vehicle (ROV) competition in partnership with the Marine Technology. This competition challenges students to build underwater robots to tackle tasks based on the real world situations. Through this work, students develop and apply a range of technical, scientific, and workplace skills. These skills among the most in demand by employers today, and include creativity, adaptability, teamwork, and communication. Community college students are currently underrepresented in MATE ROV Competitions. This project at Monterey Peninsula College in Monterey California, aims to increase the number of community college students who participate in the MATE ROV competition. It is expected that this participation will increase the number of community college students who have the scientific and workplace skills needed to enter and thrive in the STEM technician workforce, a critical sector for the nation’s economy and security. The overarching goal of the project is to increase the number of community colleges that participate in the MATE ROV Competition. To accomplish this goal, the project will: 1) identify and recruit community colleges to participate in the competition; 2) use experienced community college faculty ROV team advisors to serve as mentors; 3) provide resources and other support to community college faculty preparing for the competition; 4) use MATE’s Evaluate-Compete methodology as a mentoring and feedback vehicle for competition teams and as a tool to recruit new community colleges; 5) enhance the resources in the MATE Regional Coordinators’ Toolkit to assist coordinators in recruiting and supporting participation in competitions; and 6) identify and disseminate examples for sustaining long-term participation in the competition that could be applicable to other undergraduate research experiences. This project leverages the experiences and best practices from other successful NSF-funded projects including the MATE Center and ITEST Scale-Up. In addition, the project will use an online undergraduate research evaluation instrument also supported by NSF, EvaluateUR, to measure the efficacy and impact of the project activities. This project is funded by the Advanced Technological Education program that focuses on the education of technicians for the advanced-technology fields that drive the nation's economy.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.