Seattle youth will face real-world ocean science challenges in an underwater robotics competition
A team of Seattle high school students will compete against underwater robotics teams from around the world during the MATE ROV World Championships in Canada next month.
Triton Robotics is making its third straight trip to the international event in St. Louis. John’s, Newfoundland. The independent team is made up of seven 11th graders who all attend Seattle Academy.
The MATE (Marine Advanced Technology Education) ROV, taking place June 25-27, challenges teams to complete underwater mission tasks drawn from real-world ocean science problems. This year’s activities include mapping cold-water coral reefs, deploying ocean survey instruments, modeling offshore wind turbines, and operating profilers floating under sea ice – a notoriously difficult area for conventional monitoring equipment.
The 2026 competition is themed around two United Nations science programs focused on ocean sustainability and cryospheric research.
Triton brings two custom-built systems to the competition. Njord, a remotely operated vehicle, will handle wave tank challenges and flume tank challenges, navigating strong currents, low visibility, and precise manipulation tasks. Skadi, an autonomous vertical profiling float, will operate in the National Research Council’s ice tank, diving beneath the sea ice that conventional marine monitoring floats cannot reach.
Triton has also developed TritonOS, a custom onboard software that manages the stability of the depth grip and allows the driver to quickly flip the Njord controls so that the rear derailleur works as precisely as the front arm – something no commercial system can do. The team added special tools for the missions, including computer vision to identify invasive crabs, a photogrammetry tube to measure icebergs, and air handlers calibrated using tomatoes until they could hold soft corals without crushing them.
“This season has been about iteration – testing, breaking things, understanding why they failed, and rebuilding them better,” said Tenzin Larkin, the team’s CEO.
Triton Robotics is entirely student-led and not affiliated with any school, according to a news release. Members can oversee engineering design, software development, budgeting, testing, documentation, and pool operations; consultants provide training and safety supervision. The team completed nearly 30 deep-water pool tests this season with no safety incidents.
Team members include Griffin Fisher, Tenzin Larkin, Thomas Gust, Simon Hajduk, Theo Lipson, Miles Lipson, and Emi Enoki.
“Our goal is to help the environment through engineering,” said Gust, one of the group’s CEOs.
Update: The Triton Tech team from Edmonds College north of Seattle will also compete in the same event. The team – which raises funds – is competing for the third year in a row, and is in the “Pioneers” category against colleges from around the world. In its first year, the last-minute team built an ROV out of PVC pipe and placed fifth in its category. Last year, the team went to Michigan and finished ninth in the world.
