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Pacific Northwest
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Washington - Pacific Northwest Regional

The MATE ROV Competition Washington - Pacific Northwest Regional is designated for SCOUT, NAVIGATOR, and RANGER class competition, hosted at Federal Way, and serves as the regional hub for team development in central Washington and northwest U.S. Registration opens March 18, 2024!

2024 Regional Date: May 11, 2024

Location: Federal Way, Washington

Classes: SCOUT/NAVIGATOR/RANGER

Regional Host Organization: Marine Technology Society (MTS) Puget Sound Section

Need help registering? Let us guide you through the registration process. Step-by-step tutorials are available here. 

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Regional Coordinator

Wesley Thompson | email thompson.wes@gmail.com

Wes started volunteering with MATE in 2006 while attending the University of Washington for Oceanography. While his career has moved to space rather than oceans, he very much enjoys keeping his feet wet with the MATE ROV competition. Wes works as an instrumentation design engineer for Blue Origin, is a Scout leader, a soccer coach, and generally enjoys encouraging young people to find the best in themselves.


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Other Staff

Fritz Stahr 

Fritz has been helping run the regional MATE event since 2005 and is faculty in the UW School of Oceanography. His career in the marine tech field includes running AUVs, the Seaglider Fabrication Center at UW, and CTO at MRV Systems, and now at Open Ocean Robotics.


Matt-Monterey Bay

Other Staff

Matt Gardner | email matt.gardner@mtsociety.org

Matt’s ROV career actually got started as a participant in the MATE ROV competition. He built his first underwater robot in 2001, as part of the Introduction to Submersibles class at Monterey Peninsula College. In 2003 and 2004, he was captain of his college’s teams that participated in the MATE international ROV contest, winning the Sharkpedo award for design innovation both years. After two fun and successful years as team captain, Matt asked the MATE ROV Competition if he could help. Soon thereafter he found himself the Competition Technical Manager, helping to design and build the product demonstration tasks. And in 2017, Matt became the regional coordinator for the Northern California - Monterey Bay regional.