After our ROV competition wrapped up, I wanted to share with my students what I’d witnessed over the course of our season - not just their technical achievements, but their growth as people. Here’s the letter I sent them:

Dear ROV Students,

I wanted to take a moment to congratulate our program on achieving a 2nd place finish in the Scout class through SEL Blue! This achievement reflects the dedication and hard work of our entire ROV program at SLV.

A significant milestone was that every single student made it to the pool deck - an important goal for SLV ROV this year. All teams faced similar challenges - control system glitches, radio issues, many quick fixes, limited practice time, and more. Yet despite these obstacles, each of you persevered and represented SLV with determination and ingenuity.

Remember the MATE mission statement: “The ocean we need for the future we want.” Your work this year played within this vision - designing and building ROVs that align with real-world environmental monitoring. Each of you is one step closer to understanding how technology can help address our ocean’s challenges. Through this process, you’ve gained valuable environmental education - learning firsthand how robotics can help scientists monitor ocean health, track pollution, and protect marine ecosystems. This knowledge is crucial as we face increasing environmental challenges in our oceans.

One of the most valuable lessons from this experience has been about teamwork and leadership. I watched many of you step up at different moments - taking charge during critical builds, guiding teammates through technical challenges, speaking confidently during presentations, and making tough decisions under pressure. Some of you may have wanted to be on different teams or form one big team, but you figured out how to work together despite these preferences. This reflects the reality of workplaces and communities - we don’t always get to choose our teams, but successful people find ways to collaborate effectively regardless. Each of you brought different skills to the table - some excelled at programming, others at design, building, or presenting - and together, you created something none of you could have built alone.

As MATE reminds us in their philosophy:
“The MATE ROV Competition is about student learning.

It is designed to be an event that challenges students to apply the physics, math, electronics, and engineering skills they are learning in the classroom to solving problems from the workplace.

Mentors (teachers, parents, working professionals) are expected to limit their input to educational and inspiration roles and encouraged to focus on the benefits of the learning process and not simply on ‘winning’ the competition.”

This is exactly what I’ve seen from all of you - the learning and growth throughout this process far outweighs any trophy or placement. You’ve developed skills in mechanics, electronics, control systems, collaboration, leadership, and public speaking that will serve you well into the future.

I want to express how incredibly proud I am of each and every one of you - not just for your technical accomplishments, but for how you’ve grown as a community and connected with the broader world around us. From the K-5 Science Night where you inspired younger students, to the Save Our Shores beach cleanup where you took environmental action, you’ve shown that robotics is about more than just building machines. You’ve also helped forge important relationships within our community through your presentations and outreach to the Valley Women’s Club, Lions Club, and Panther Club. These connections don’t just provide financial support - they create a network of people who believe in what you’re doing and want to see you succeed. This is how you embody leadership and build the community for ‘the future we want.’

In the meantime, this Tuesday from 3-5, we will have a student debrief & agile retrospective about what went right, what went wrong, what to stop doing, what to start doing, and what to do better. This is an important opportunity to reflect while the experience is still fresh in our minds.

To celebrate our collective journey, I’m planning a pool party and a screening of the inspiring movie “Spare Parts” - a true story about four undocumented high school students who built an underwater robot and competed against college teams at the MATE ROV competition. The movie is likely to be on 5/27. We may do a bit more than this before 5/27, but let’s reflect first.

Best regards,
Mr. Brown

Sometimes the most important teaching happens in the moments after the competition ends, when you help students see how much they’ve grown.