Clovis Community College robotics team heads to world championship in Canada

A student-built underwater robot from Clovis Community College is heading to a world championship in Newfoundland and Labrador, putting Fresno County’s community college engineering pipeline on an international stage. Crush Depth, the college’s Marine Advanced Technology Education team, is building a new remotely operated vehicle for the 2026 MATE ROV Competition World Championship at the Fisheries and Marine Institute of Memorial University in Canada.

The competition will run June 25-27, with team inspections June 23-24, and it will draw teams from around the world, including universities from China and the United Kingdom. MATE says the contest is designed to build STEM, critical-thinking, collaboration, entrepreneurship and innovation skills for the blue economy workforce, and its Explorer class is open to students from community and technical colleges as well as four-year universities.

For Clovis Community College, the trip is about more than medals. The college’s club page says Crush Depth plans to compete in the Explorer class this year, a step up from Pioneer, the division the team won in its first world championship appearance. MATE’s 2024 results show Crush Depth finished first in the Pioneer class, while Clovis also earned the GROVER award and Robert Voss received an Oceaneering ROV Pilot Award.

The program’s growth has been dramatic. The Engineering Renaissance Club’s fundraising page says the group has expanded from about 10 students in 2024 to more than 90 active students. That growth matters in Fresno County, where employers and educators continue to look for ways to train more students in hands-on engineering, electronics, fabrication and problem-solving before they move into the regional workforce or on to four-year programs.

Students say they have reorganized the team, narrowed their focus on the technical groups and are working to arrive in Canada fully funded and fully prepared. Some students and leaders have paid for materials out of pocket, while the team has also been seeking sponsors and launching GoFundMe challenges to keep the project moving.

Crush Depth’s run to Newfoundland shows how a community college team can function as both a competition squad and a training ground. In a county that depends on building its technical talent base, the students at Clovis are proving that real-world engineering experience can start long before a bachelor’s degree, and that a small college team can still compete with some of the world’s biggest schools.