Abstract - The Hawaii Underwater Robot Challenge (HURC) is modeled after (and inspired by!) the IEEE Robot Challenge, a program created by the Baltimore, Maryland section of IEEE, and by the Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) Center’s ROV Competition. Like the Baltimore competition, high school teams are provided a kit of parts for building a robot. As in both programs, students build their robots and prepare a written report about their robot project; the robots are brought to a competition where they are judged on their robot’s design and construction, give an oral presentation, and test their robot’s performance. Scoring of the competition is based on all four components. The great interest in the ocean surrounding Hawaii led to the idea of having the students build underwater robots, similar to those of the MATE competition. The parts kit includes a video camera as well as motors, wire, propellers and switches, and the robots’ performance is tested in a pool by carrying out tasks under remote control, such as activating switches or valves, collecting objects and returning them to the surface, and surveying the bottom. The first HURC was held in December 2003, with 12 teams participating; in 2004 14 teams competed. The 2004 HURC became a regional competition for MATE’s national ROV Competition, so top scoring teams earn the right to participate with teams from across North America.

I. INTRODUCTION
Students of all ages are fascinated by robots, whether remotely controlled or operating autonomously, and building robots can show students how the skills they learn in mathematics and science classes have real-world applications. One of the earliest robotics competitions for students is the now-legendary MIT mechanical engineering course, 2.007 “Design and Manufacturing”.[1] In 1991, a competition similar to 2.007 was developed for high school students, called FIRST[2] (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology). In these competitions, the student receive a kit of parts that includes motors, control electronics, bearings, etc. and must build a robot to carry out particular tasks that change from year to year.
While the FIRST competition is exciting, educational, and indeed inspirational, the cost of entering is very prohibitive for high schools located in Hawaii. The parts kit contains many expensive parts, so the fee for entering the competition is well over $5000. Teams in Hawaii must travel to the continental United States to compete; since teams might be made up of one or two dozen students, the travel costs can be tens of thousands of dollars. In 2002, the Marine Advanced Technical Education (MATE) Center first held a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) competition for high school and college students across North America.[3] Not only did the MATE competition not have an entry fee, but thanks to their generous sponsors, provided some funding to teams for ROV parts and travel to the competition venue at Kennedy Space Center and Brevard Community College. No parts kit was provided, and within some common-sense safety restrictions, the ROV can be built with any materials.
The most immediate inspiration for HURC was the IEEE Robot Challenge, a program sponsored by the Baltimore, Maryland section of IEEE.[4] In this competition, a simple and inexpensive kit of parts for building a walking robot is provided without charge to any public high school in their area. Students build their robots and prepare a written report about their robot project; the robots are brought to a competition held on a weekend at the Baltimore Museum of Industry, where they are judged on their robot’s design and construction, give an oral presentation, and test their robot’s performance on an obstacle course. Scoring of the competition is based on all three components.

II. HURC 2003
The first Hawaii Underwater Robot Challenge was held during the fall 2003 semester. The fall semester was selected because almost all other robotic competitions and similar events such as science and engineering fairs and electric car races are held in the spring semester. Both teachers and students expressed a preference for holding the event earlier in the academic year, where there would be fewer schedule conflicts.
Like both the MATE competition and the Baltimore robot challenge, part of the scoring was based on a written report and an oral presentation, in addition to the performance of the robot itself. The 2003 MATE competition introduced the “mission scenario” to the competition, in which a story provides the context for the tasks the robot must accomplish in competition. The scenario for the 2003 competition involved entering the wreck of the Titanic and recovering “data acquisition probes” that had been installed during an earlier mission. We adopted the mission scenario idea, and developed the following for HURC 2003:
“The SS Okolehao, sailing in the Pacific with a small cargo of environmentally lethal chemicals has grounded on a protected environmentally rich reef in shallow water. Although topside is above water, below the vessel is completely flooded. Access through compartments and passage ways is obstructed by a variety of debris. The cargo is stored in a digital-keypad accessible (on a timer) vault at the end of a passageway that is alarmed and set with automatic hatch closures.
“The timer was set to open the vault at voyage end for unloading. The timer is still functioning and is set to open the vault 0800 HST December 21st. It has been determined that the keypad to the vault has to be reset (locked/sealed) and that alarms with automatic hatch closure devices are still active and must be deactivated along the passageway.
“The Challenge mission for your ROV will be to maneuver through this obstructed passage using its payload device deactivating alarms and closures along the way and reset the vault closure device. You’ll have ten minutes from launch to recovery to accomplish the mission. Guidance and sketches of obstacles your ROV will have to maneuver through and around, what actuation devices it will encounter, and how to reset them and the vault is being developed by another salvage team and will be provided by October 1st.”
The concept of an inexpensive kit of parts, made available without charge, was something borrowed from the Baltimore IEEE section’s competition. While there are resources on the Internet with information about building underwater robots, and a book by Harry Bohm[5], providing some of the basic parts to the student teams makes entering the competition less daunting. The contents of the parts kit are listed in Table 1; it includes those parts for building an ROV that would be difficult to find in a hardware store. The standard kit included a monochrome video camera, but teams could substitute a color video camera by paying the difference in cost. No parts for the structure of the robot are provided; for most teams, common PVC pipe and fittings are used, although some have been built of wood or plastic sheet.

Some teachers incorporated the competition into their curriculum, in some cases purchasing additional kits for the classroom, but in other schools, the competition was an after-school club activity. A few schools with previous experience in FIRST robotics competition inquired about using the robot control system from that competition to control their underwater robot. That control system, manufactured by Innovation First, Inc.[6] is quite powerful and sophisticated, with proportional control of DC motors and model radio-control type servo motors, actuation of relays, a wide variety of control inputs such as joysticks and switches, and the capability for students to reprogram the control system for custom and even autonomous function.
While the use of such a sophisticated control system would make control of the ROV less difficult and open up additional opportunities for learning, the cost of these control systems is far beyond our budget – the entire competition did not cost much more than one of these systems. We wanted to encourage the schools with these systems (and others that might use other proportional control systems, like those from model boats and airplanes) to make use of them without disadvantaging those teams with the simple switches, so we established two divisions in the competition, the Dolphin division for teams with advanced control systems and the Shark division for the basic controls.
The ideal for a competition like this would be to have at least one engineering mentor for each school. Recruiting mentors is a perennial problem, however, and although some did volunteer, we didn’t have enough for all schools. In order to compensate, we held workshops on weekends during the fall semester, open to both teachers and students, where we demonstrated construction materials and building techniques.
The competition took place on December 20, 2003 at the public pool at Waipahu District Park. Twelve teams competed, with close to 100 students participating.

Fig. 1. Students from Sacred Hearts Academy test their ROV at HURC 2003.

Fig. 2. One of the ROVs in action at HURC 2003.

III. HURC 2004
The top scoring team in the Dolphin division (Waipahu High School) and the second place team in the Shark division (Moanalua High School) entered the MATE ROV Competition regional in San Diego, where they finished first and second, qualifying them for the MATE National Competition. (The top scoring Shark team, Punahou School, was unable to make the trip to San Diego.) We discussed with MATE the possibility of HURC becoming a regional competition for MATE and were welcomed with enthusiasm. HURC does not quite fit in the mold of other regionals, however, in that other regionals are held near the end of the spring semester. We wanted to keep our fall semester schedule, but the mission scenario for the MATE competition is usually developed during the fall semester. Once again we put together our own mission scenario, based in part upon MATE’s 2004 scenario, exploring “Mystery Reef” in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.
“This competition scenario and mission tasks will test your engineering skills. You will need to design and construct an ROV to explore an area of Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve (NHICRER), an imaginary underwater reef site located in French Frigate Shoals Hawai’i. The mission reef is made up of features that could be found on one or more of the many different types of reefs found within our national marine sanctuaries.”
“The NOAA exploration expedition has just completed preliminary side scan sonar, sub-bottom profiler, and drop camera surveys of French Frigate Shoals (FFS) in NHICRER. The expedition team has surveyed site in an area of hydrothermal vents to establish semi-permanent network of monitoring sites for reef qualities such as temperatures, salinity, dissolved oxygen, clarity, etc. Adjust and open/close valves at an experimental fish-feeding network. A physical survey of some unique bottom features using an in place grid is needed.”

Fig. 3. Students from Moanalua High School prepare their ROV for competition at HURC 2004.

Fig. 4. As judges and team members observe, a student ROV pilot carries out the mission tasks.

“This is a performance and exploration and working mission. Performance means that the ROV will have to demonstrate several operational capabilities prior to exploration and work. Exploration means discovery of the new – and the unexpected. Working means your ROV will be finding, surveying and collecting samples, carrying and setting up new sensor(s) in a network, opening and closing valves to a distribution system, connecting and disconnecting power sources. This competition will push your imagination and technical skills. Enter the event with the spirit of the men and women explorers who have set out into the unknown. Take on the challenges with gusto, enthusiasm, and excitement. Design your ROV to be robust, mobile, reliable, and multi-functional so that it can perform varied mission tasks. Do your research, document your work, pay attention to detail, and learn from your mistakes.”
“There are six mission tasks which may be accomplished in any order. One operations performance task is also required. The mission tasks are summarized:
1) Task: to conduct a Physical Survey by camera of a selected sea bottom area for NOAA’s Biogeography Program. The survey will identify, document and map marine biotic life (plant, corals, and animal), manufactured debris, and geologic formations. In order to precisely locate findings, the expedition team has installed a temporary overlaying grid system on sea bottom at the project site.
2) Task: to place a multi function remote sensor down-current of new hydrothermal vent site. This sensor must be activated on the surface and then placed by ROV in an upright position, on its tripod power base, in a predetermined location in order to maximize its effectiveness. A team member in Control Center must map sensor placement.
3) Task: to search, locate and map, and collect a unique crustacean (“FFS Spheroncone” crustacean). It’s believed that the crustacean prefers a certain area near the hydrothermal vent. A team member in Control Center using the map form in Mission Logbook must map specimen location. ROV will place crustacean in sample basket for analysis on the surface.
4) Task: to search, locate and map, and collect a unique, extremely low metabolic rate fish (“FFS Elomer” fish). It’s believed that this fish prefers a certain area near the hydrothermal vent. A team member in Control Center must map the specimen location. ROV will place a fish in sample basket for analysis on the surface.
5) Task: to find, identify and open a valve activating a specific feeding line at Oceanic Institute’s PFSS Site. There are four unique separate feeding pipelines at the site supplied from their individual tanks on Teal Island. Mission task specific pipeline will be provided in Mission Logbook.
6) Task: to find, identify and close a valve de-activating a specific feeding line at Oceanic Institute’s PFSS Site. There are four unique separate feeding pipelines at the site supplied from their individual tanks on Teal Island. Mission task specific pipeline will be provided in Mission Logbook.”
“Additionally, the HURC ROV Development Committee has asked that an ROV operations performance task be demonstrated as part of their design progress program. Each team will demonstrate a controlled inverted ROV ‘flight’ of at least 5 seconds enroute to, or from the mission site.”

Fig. 5. Last minute adjustments to an ROV before the dive.

The kit of parts supplied was very similar to that from the first year, with two exceptions – first, four electric motors and propellers were included, so that ROV’s could be built with a pair of vertical thrusters to allow roll motions. Second, all of the video cameras purchased were color instead of monochrome; a few monochrome cameras were left over from the year before, and they were offered to the teams that might want to substitute two monochrome cameras for the color one in the kit.
The second annual HURC was held on December 5, 2004, at the University of Hawaii’s Duke Kahanamoku Aquatic Complex (DKAC) rather than at Waipahu District Park. The DKAC has more space, and includes classrooms which we used for conducting the engineering presentations. Fourteen teams from eight high schools participated, including for the first time two teams from another island.

VI. FUTURE COMPETITIONS
As of this writing, planning for HURC 2005 has begun, and we are looking for ways to increase the complexity of the competition by providing a sensor for the teams to integrate into their ROVs. A temperature sensor would be an inexpensive addition to the parts kit, and could be read with a voltmeter at the surface. Pressure sensors are another option that would make it possible to incorporate depth measurements into the mission tasks.
Another addition to future competitions would be to include a programmable motor controller, similar in some ways to the Innovation First controllers, but smaller and less expensive. All teams would be able to have proportional controls for their ROVs’ motors, and could program additional functions such as maintaining a fixed depth or heading. We might be able to add a division for autonomous underwater vehicles – one reason for developing a programmable controller that would be small enough to include in an AUV.
Another objective for the future is to make competitions accessible to students throughout the state of Hawaii. The entry of two teams from the island of Hawaii was a start, but they were handicapped by not being able participate in the workshops. There does appear to be interest in running a separate competition on that island. Additional funding would make possible the option of holding workshops on other islands and/or subsidizing travel costs for teachers and students to travel to Honolulu for workshops and for the competition itself.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to thank the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society for providing the funding to get HURC started and to the IEEE Hawaii Section for additional funding. Funds and moral support have also been provided by MATE, and through MATE by the Marine Technical Society’s ROV Committee. The School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology at the University of Hawaii has made space and materials available, not only for the competition but for workshops and mentoring students. Finally, we would also like to thank the teachers, mentors, judges, and most of all the students who have participated.

REFERENCES
[1] http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2005/inaug-2007-0504.html
[2] http://www.usfirst.org/
[3] http://www.marinetech.org/rov_competition/index.php
[4] http://robotchallenge.com/index1.html
[5] H. Bohm and V. Jensen, Build Your Own Underwater Robot and Other Wet Projects. Vancouver, Canada: Westcoast Words, 2003.
[6] http://www.ifirobotics.com/