Getting Started - MATE Curriculum

The MATE Center offers numerous lessons on ROV systems, project management, electricity and electronics, soldering and other skills, and much more.  Many of these lessons go hand-in-hand with building an ROV kit or preparing for the MATE competition.  MATE encourages instructors to use some or all of the lessons to create their own classroom curriculum.

Project Management:

Technical skills and electrical/electronics knowledge is only one part of building an ROV as a team.  In order to complete an ROV, the group must use teamwork, organizational and project management skills.  The MATE Center has lessons on bringing ROV building into the classroom, organizing a group, and can point to some of the pitfalls that may be encountered.  

ROV Systems:

Not only does the MATE Center have detailed instructions on putting together ROVs, but MATE has lessons on most of the relevant systems.  Lessons on buoyancy not only have ideas for various types of buoyancy to use, but also include lessons on why some buoyancy may be better in certain circumstances, how you can mathematically calculate the exact volume of foam needed to make a vehicle neutrally buoyant, and physics lessons behind buoyancy and ballast.  MATE has lessons on testing various combinations of motors and propellers to find out which combination will provide the most, or in some cases, best overall thrust for a vehicle in forward and reverse.  Results can be graphed and evaluated to choose an ideal motor/propeller combination.  MATE has detailed video instructions on how the double pole, double throw switches actually control each motor. The MATE Center also has instructions on how to waterproof a camera, attach propellers to motors, create a moving gripper using simple hydraulics, and much more.  

Technical Skills:

The MATE Center provides lessons, worksheets and other resources on a wide variety of technical skills such as soldering wires, soldering PC boards, simple electronics, circuits, using a multi-meter, batteries and more.  Troubleshooting lessons help students understand how to fix their ROV when something goes wrong.  

See all the MATE Center lessons and curriculum, including links to other great online curriculum.