SACRAMENTO – Senator Ted Gaines (R-Roseville) recently presented certificates on the Senate Floor to the Jesuit High School Robotics Team to recognize their tremendous accomplishment in winning the 2011 Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) International ROV competition at the NASA Johnson Space Center’s Neutral Buoyancy Lab in Houston, Texas.

“I’m so proud of the Robotics Team for bringing home the championship,” said Gaines. “These intelligent young men are the future of the science and technology field and it was an honor to recognize them for their stellar achievement.”

Jesuit placed first out of 26 teams in the Explorer class, the highest team designation at the three-day engineering event. They beat out college teams from 24 states and eight countries, including the defending champs from Russia.

The mission was to design and build a robot to dive to a depth of 40 feet, remove a faulty oil well cover, cap the oil well, take scientific measurements and capture several “sea creatures.” In addition, they had to prepare a technical report, create a sales poster and present an engineering evaluation in front of a panel of marine engineering experts.

The team not only recorded the two fastest times of the competition, they scored 307 out a possible 300 points on their winning mission run with bonus points for coming in under time.

“California is the unquestioned hub of global technology and innovation,” said Gaines. “I look forward to seeing these budding scientists and builders strengthen that legacy with the great achievements that lie in their bright futures.”

For their efforts, Jesuit Robotics received the championship trophy, robotics and ROV related books, ROV components, VISA gift cards and a travel credit to have team members attend the Underwater Intervention Conference in New Orleans in January 2012, where their ROV will be on display as they man a booth.

The Robotics Team has won this competition twice in the past five years.

Senator Ted Gaines represents the 1st Senate District, which includes all or parts of Alpine, Amador, Calaveras, El Dorado, Lassen, Modoc, Mono, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Sacramento and Sierra counties.