BOSTON (AP) – The first time the world saw clear images from the shipwrecked Titanic, they had a team of 10 engineers from Woods Hole to thank.

But not much was heard about any of them at the time.

Most of the attention went to explorer Robert Ballard, who had discovered the sunken ship in 1985. Ballard, then director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Cape Cod, returned from that trip with grainy, black and white images of the ship.

It wasn’t until 1986, when engineers invented a deep-water, remote-controlled robot, that the public could see high-resolution color footage of the historic wreck.

On Friday, the team of 10 engineers from Woods Hole was formally honored for its achievement with the second annual Great Moments in Engineering Award. The award was given out in Boston by GlobalSpec, an engineering search engine company.

“This is a good example of the story behind the story. The team that did the work often is not pointed out, especially with engineers who don’t seek publicity,” said Jeff Killeen, Chairman and CEO of GlobalSpec.

“We didn’t do it for the recognition. It’s the challenge,” said the team’s principal engineer, Christopher von Alt.

GlobalSpec asked its users around the world to nominate engineers for the award. Last year’s inaugural award went to the NASA crew that designed a carbon dioxide absorption canister which saved the lives of the three astronauts onboard the Apollo 13.

In 1986, the U.S. Navy funded the creation of a robot to further explore the Titanic. But declassified information revealed that the real reason behind the Navy’s involvement was the need for a robot to assess the state of two sunken U.S. submarines. The Navy wanted to beat the Russians to the U.S.S. Thresher and U.S.S. Scorpion to see if any nuclear material was leaking. The Titanic exploration was merely a cover.

The Woods Hole team had six months to create the 200-pound, 2-foot square blue robot. They named the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) “Jason Jr.,” after Jason and the Argonauts, a Greek myth about the search for a golden fleece.

“A lot of us thought it was impossible,” said engineer Emile Bergeron, 53, who designed the robot’s camera. “I was amazed the camera worked as well as it did.”

The engineers set out to sea on July 13, 1986. For the next two weeks, they sent Jason Jr. on nine separate trips, down 2 miles to the Atlantic Ocean floor.

A spherical submarine brought Jason Jr. down on each trip. The submarine remained at a distance from the Titanic, while a crew inside deployed the robot and maneuvered it around the ship.

As Jason Jr.’s pilot, Martin Bowen was stationed in the submarine. Each trip down took 2 hours, at a rate of one mile per hour. Bowen said Ballard made the three-man submarine crew listen to the soundtrack from Flashdance all the way down.

“It was real go get em’ music,” said Bowen, laughing. “That was annoying.”

The engineers ran into a slew of flooding, electrical circuitry, and remote control problems that nearly compromised the entire expedition. There was also the danger that the fiber-optic cable that connected the robot to the crew’s submarine would get caught or tangled in the wreckage. Most nights, the group only slept a few hours. Some nights, they didn’t sleep at all.

Jason Jr.’s deployment was the first time an ROV or a fiber-optic cable system were successfully operated in extremely deep water. Since then, ROVs have played a major role in marine archaeology, ocean ecosystem research, commercial expansion and national security.

Bowen is reminded of his experience in the submarine whenever he hears music from Flashdance. And he’s still in awe of the amount of attention the Titanic discovery has received.

“This ship just doesn’t sink,” he said. “I never understood how much effect it would have on the public.”