A tethered, underwater robot. ROVs are usually piloted by a crew on land via cables that send signals and power to the robot. In Spare Parts, the Carl Hayden students compete in the MATE competition, which requires them to build an ROV. This ROV (which they dub “Stinky”) must be able to complete several tasks, including retrieving items, measuring depth, extracting water samples, and calculating temperature.
Remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Quotes in Spare Parts
The Spare Parts quotes below are all either spoken by Remotely operated vehicle (ROV) or refer to Remotely operated vehicle (ROV). For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Introduction
Quotes
There were teams from across the country, including students from MIT, who were sponsored by ExxonMobil, the world's largest publicly traded company. The Latino kids were from Carl Hayden Community High School in West Phoenix.
Related Characters:
Oscar Vazquez, Cristian Arcega, Lorenzo Santillan, Luis Aranda
Related Symbols:
Stinky the Robot
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
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Remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Term Timeline in Spare Parts
The timeline below shows where the term Remotely operated vehicle (ROV) appears in Spare Parts. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Introduction
...Barbara, presenting their project for the third annual Marine Advanced Technology Education Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) competition. The MATE competition is an event sponsored by NASA and the Navy to identify...
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One
...competition hosted by the MATE Center there. The competition is centered on remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), which will have to complete tasks underwater. The trip fosters a new friendship between them,...
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Two
...the University of California, Santa Barbara. There are seven tasks: students have to build an ROV that measures the submarine’s length and calculates its depth, can navigate inside the submarine, and...
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...they have some funding, the students begin to make models to see how big their ROV needs to be to accommodate propellers, sensors, and controls. They then talk through the first...
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...it before. On the same trip, Fredi takes the students to SeaBotix, a San Diego-based ROV manufacturer, with the company president, Donald Rodocker. Rodocker takes the students into the laboratory to...
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...LBV (little benthic vehicle), which is amazingly compact. Still, it has to contend with the ROV’s biggest problem: its tether. The tether is a bundle of cables that allows the robot’s...
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...in their model. Then, he, Cristian, and Lorenzo strategize about how to build the real ROV. Metal will be more compact, but expensive. Cristian proposes glass syntactic flotation foam, which saw...
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...pipe. Luis, Cristian, Oscar, and Lorenzo gather in the robotics closet. Cristian sketches out the ROV and calculates the amount of air that will be trapped in the PVC pipes. He...
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The idea is novel: most teams don’t put the battery on the ROV, because a leak would take down the whole system. But putting it at the bottom...
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The third ROV task is the hardest: extracting a liquid sample from inside a barrel while hovering. Oscar...
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...of the pump. When he tests it, the system’s only flaw is that when the ROV is pulled out of the water to retrieve the sample, the balloon falls over and...
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A month after the students begin the ROV project, Dean Kamen releases his annual FIRST challenge. Cristian, Oscar, Lorenzo, and Luis are part...
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After Atlanta, the kids have ten weeks until the ROV championship. Their experience with FIRST proves invaluable. They use the controller from that robot in...
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Three
The next morning, at the underwater portion of the competition, Monterey Peninsula College has three ROVs working together and a fifteen-person team. Still, they only get 30 out of 110 points...
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...place over dinner, and is hosted by Bryce Merrill, a recruiting manager for an industrial ROV firm. Fredi and Allan try to temper the boys’ expectations. They expect that they’ll be...
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...entire room is on its feet. Nine months earlier the students didn’t know what an ROV was. Now they have won the 2004 Marine Advanced Technology and Education Explorer class ROV...
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Four
Eight months after the ROV competition, Oscar is working on a construction site as a day laborer. He feels stuck....
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