Slugbotics

Slugbotics

Environmental Stewardship & Social Justice

Slugbotics is a student organization at UC Santa Cruz focused on introducing students of any major to underwater robotics and hands-on engineering projects. We design, program, fabricate, and test ROVs (Remote Operated Vehicles) that are designed to complete complex tasks in a marine environment. Our ROV competes in the annual International Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) competition in June. We also frequently represent UCSC at regional events such as Maker Faire, and participate in local community outreach in cooperation with the Baskin School of Engineering.


Updates:

We are currently developing an ROV for the 2022 competition, which will be capable of cleaning up plastic pollution in the ocean, preserving coral reefs, and repairing infrastructure to maintain healthy waterways. We competed virtually in the 2021 competition and scored will in the judged portion of the event. The previous version of the ROV successfully competed in 2019's International MATE competition, placing 15th out of 25 International teams that qualified. Our ROVs have been able to test water quality, clear underwater debris from dams, monitor tidal turbines, collect trash, and more.

This year, we competed for the first time in a battlebots competition for which they received a small grant award and were able to win a match and make it to the 3rd elimination round. This taught fast-paced mechanical design and practice working with contract manufacturers.

SOMARS, a new offshoot of Slugbotics, drafted and submitted a proposal to CITRIS’ autonomous environmental survey drone challenge. While they were not selected as the winning proposal, they are now working with the teams from UC Merced to bring their proposal to life.

Goals and Impacts:

We are a team dedicated to inclusivity and community, and encourage any and all students to join us in our pursuit of STEM education. We believe that engineering is a mindset, not a major.

Students who join Slugbotics can participate in our Fall Quarter onboarding classes, where they learn all the skills they need to contribute to the team. We currently offer three tracks: Mechanical, Electronics, and Software. To learn more about each of these classes please visit our website.

All of our work and lab space is within the S-lab at UC Santa Cruz. We are happy to be part of an organization whose goals are to advance sustainable practices in all aspects of design, fabrication and function. The collaborative environment created by having neighboring lab space to other sustainability groups on campus such as Formula Slug, Rocket Team, and WaterLab allows us to troubleshoot problems, get suggestions, and learn more than we could alone.


Get in Touch:

Website: Slugbotics.com   Contact: slugbotics@ucsc.edu  Facebook:fb.com/slugbotics