Santa Cruz County student robotics team wins world championship
SANTA CRUZ — High school students from across Santa Cruz County secured their status as the best student robotics team in the world last week. Hephaestus Robotics Team, a youth robotics team consisting of 21 students from eight high schools across Santa Cruz County, won first place in their class at the nine-day MATE ROV World Championship in Canada June 27. The annual world championship was hosted by the Fisheries and Marine Institute of Memorial University and the National Research Council Canada, bringing together 26 student teams from 16 countries to compete for the best underwater robot. Hephaestus Robotics was among 47 teams from 13 countries competing in its group, the Ranger class. Named after the ancient Greek god of fire and craftsmanship, Hephaestus team members consisted of students from Kirby School, Pacific Collegiate School, Pajaro Valley High School, Santa Cruz High School, Sapphire School, Scotts Valley High School, Sequoia High School and Soquel High School. Hephaestus competed in St. John’s, Newfoundland, in the Marine Institute’s flume tank, a 1.7 million-liter facility designed to simulate ocean currents, as well as the National Research Council’s wave basin — a big shift from the 12-foot-deep above-ground pool the team uses to practice. “They had some pretty crazy facilities,” said Nico Mora-Shulman, team member and rising senior at Pacific Collegiate School. “They had giant pools with waves and currents and stuff like that and getting to see the actual ROVs there that they work on and that are in the ocean was a cool part.” High school students from countries including China, Scotland, Mexico and Egypt completed mission tasks in conditions modeling offshore environments with remotely operated vehicles they designed and built themselves. In the competition, teams had to map and document cold water coral ecosystems, deploy and service subsea monitoring technologies, support offshore energy systems and conduct under-ice data collection. On top of their in-water performance, teams roleplayed as real start-up companies where they developed technical documentation, managed budgets, presented marketing displays and delivered engineering presentations to a panel of industry professionals. Sophia Casaletto, a recent graduate from Pacific Collegiate, was the team’s chief executive officer this year, where she led them through weekly meetings, kept students accountable and supported them through each of their components of the project. The Hephaestus Robotics Team after winning the 2026 MATE ROV World Championships last week. (Contributed photo) The team’s winning ROV had to complete three 15-minute sets doing different tasks like picking up a starfish or taking pictures of invasive crabs and identifying them with AI, said Tim Sylvester, team mentor and co-founder of X Academy. Hephaestus’ ROV successfully replaced a simulated eDNA sensor, worked to recover an anchor buoy and deployed an autonomous float designed to hold depth and collect data. In addition to the ROV, the team created a profiling float, a probe modeled after real-world probes scientists launch into oceans that go down to 1,000 meters underwater to float for nine days, then sink to 2,000 meters for a day before coming to the surface to transmit data, Sylvester explained. “As far as engineering goes, they (students) don’t have a kit,” Sylvester said. “They can use just about any parts they want and they design it, they build it, they can create printed circuit boards, 3D print parts, laser cut parts, break things and they write their own software. It’s a real engineering project and they build devices that are pretty close to commercial class, small remotely operated vehicles.” Unlike similar competitions that may have contestants show off their robots and machines, Casaletto said the MATE ROV World Championship had participants face real-world environmental situations, which helped her get a better sense of the potential for change robotics can have. “This competition is not like other competitions where, you know, you show up and the robot is meant to move a Lego from here to here, etc.,” Casaletto said. “It is very focused on showing you that there are real-world applications and every task that we do is meant to simulate something a commercial robot would do in the marine conservation industry.” The team received financial support to travel to North America’s easternmost point from International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers 332, Aptos Veterans of Foreign Wars, Santa Cruz County Office of Education, friends and family, as well as fundraising events at Hook & Line restaurant and MJA Vineyards. Hephaestus is a part of X Academy Robotics Clubs, a local nonprofit partnered with the Santa Cruz County Office of Education giving high school students in Santa Cruz County free hands-on experience with engineering, computer science, teamwork, entrepreneurship and project management. Beginning each year in September, mentors teach basic tutorial workshops for students to learn about programming and electrical engineering before beginning to prepare for the competition in November or December, said Tim Madsen, treasurer of X Academy. Students work in sub-teams to research, design and create different parts of the ROV to be completed around March to start testing, Madsen said. Pacific Collegiate School students Amber Williams and Sophia Casaletto got the ballast set on an autonomous ROV float that the Hephaestus Robotics Team used during the competition. (Shmuel Thaler — Santa Cruz Sentinel) To qualify for the world championship, teams compete in regional competitions across the world, Sylvester said. Hephaestus took first place out of 10 teams at the Northern California regional competition at Watsonville High School in April. Throughout the year, the team also works on other projects in the community, Mora-Shulman said. They are currently working on building an ROV for the Western Flyer, a historical boat known for its 1940 expedition with John Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts that was recently restored as a modern marine research and education vessel. Casaletto said the team’s dedication and time spent helped set them apart from the competition, saying she and the team worked together all day every day for the month of June to work on the robot and practice for the competition. “I’ve never been a part of an activity where both I and my team members are all just putting in so much of our time,” she said. “I think that made all the difference because we had over 100 hours of practicing the tasks in the pool and we just eventually got it down so well.”
Source: Santa Cruz Sentinel