VideoRay’s Pro 4 ROV can do a lot: offshore inspections, military mine counter measures, search and rescue missions, marine research, and so much more. Andy Goldstein, an Upper Dublin High School alum and vice president of engineering for VideoRay, added another item to the list of underwater  Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) capabilities: inspecting the UDHS indoor pool as a demonstration for an oceanography class.

Goldstein explained the purpose of underwater ROVs, “They do tedious, dirty, dangerous work where you don’t want to put a human.” The teacher of the class, Richard Schmidt, invited VideoRay to show his class what real technology looks like and how it is used. Goldstein, with degrees in material science and computer science, was happy to oblige.

VideoRay has sold about 5,000 ROV units since he started and has clients worldwide, Goldstein said. Many are used for inspections for offshore oil rigs, inside pipelines, dams, search and rescue shipwrecks, mine counter measures, and universities will buy the robot to take it apart.

Schmidt “would like to write a grant” for a baseline ROV to use for his oceanography class in the future. His class will be getting so scuba training soon, and an ROV would fit right into the part when they must explore a shipwreck created by Schmidt.

Schmidt remarked that “The geosciences are not represented well in high schools across the country,” and he hopes that classes such as his, and technology like VideoRay’s, will help better prepare students for a future in marine and similar sciences.