Chris Carlsen, a mechanical engineering major at the University of Maryland-College Park tends the Robotics@Maryland team’s Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) “Tortuga IV” during practice runs at the 14th Annual International RoboSub Competition at Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Pacific. The contest, co-sponsored by the U.S. Office of Naval Research the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International attracted more than 200 students from 30 schools and seven countries, and challenges teams of student engineers to design AUVs to perform realistic missions in a simulated ocean environment. AUVs are important to the Navy because they perform a variety of missions including underwater mapping, mine location, and facilitating detailed scientific research. As the Navy's Information Dominance Systems Command, SPAWAR supports AUV development and strongly encourages all students to explore careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields.