How is that for an awesomely misleading post title? I must be spending too much time on DIGG lately.

We just learned about a really cool yearly underwater ROV competition that is put on by APASE (Arizona Promoters of Applied Science in Education). The contest is called NURC (The National Underwater Robotics Challenge) and this year the contest is “Quest For Nessie!” How fun!

The government of Scotland has hired you and your team to help find and tag the legendary Loch Ness Monster. Yes that’s right, the Loch Ness Monster! The Scottish Government says they know it exists for a fact now and need a professional robotics team to use an ROV to put a radio tag on it, as well as retrieve its egg from its nest.

Last years contest sounded fun too. It was called the Underwater Typewriter Repairman. Correction it was called Fire Under Ice and the winner was Underwater Typewriter Repairman. Here is a video from the winner:

More info:

When is the competition?

The competition will be held on June 11-13, 2010. The teams that make it to the finals will compete at night and their ROV should be able to provide its own lights. Finals will be from 8pm to 4 am.

Where will the event take place?

The event will be held at Chandler High School in Chandler, Arizona

Who may enter?

The competition is open to any home school, jr. high, high school, jr. college or university as well as private corporations or adult teams. Teams may consist of combinations of students, industry mentors, faculty members and parents. Students must however be the ones competing in all the parts of the competition. Adults can be team members, but the students do all the competing at the competition. Private corporations or adults are the exception, unless they have students. Jr. high, high school, colleges and universities, and corporations will be scored separately as categories, but they will all compete in the same mission. All adult teams can enter and compete and will be scored against the universities.