Dive!, Dive!, Dive!

Today we finally were able to test our underwater vehicles. We evaluated their maneuvering capabilities in the pool and nearly all designs worked as originally planned, although some tweaking may need to happen. Next, we will be mounting sensors for temperature and depth of the water on our vehicles. 

Click here to see our video!

Switches, Buoys, and Thrusters Are a Go!

Over the last few days, we have been busy testing and designing various models of our underwater vehicles and measuring linear, vertical, and rotational speed based on thruster placement. We applied our findings to our vehicle designs as we prepared for our first full scale pool test at UMass Lowell's Costello indoor pool. Much of our time has been spent wiring motors and switches, balancing and stabilizing our vehicles, and prioritizing our design criteria. 

  

  

Visit to the MIT Museum

Our engineering winterim group visited what could be the capital of the engineering field, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  We toured the campus with one of our leaders, Ms. Katherine Shroyer, an alumna and employee of MIT. We also visited the MIT museum which features exhibits on engineering and design, including robots and underwater vehicles, pictured below. 

Perhaps some of the most interesting exhibits were the sculptures of Arthur Gansen which made us question the line between high-level mechanical engineering and art. 

Sink or Swim?

As we worked to make progress on our underwater vehicles, we used math to compute buoyant forces of an object. We tested sample objects in our 200 gallon test tank to see if they would sink or float based solely on our calculations. In the afternoon, we assembled our thruster motors and waterproofed them using electrical tape, wax and plastic canisters. Slowly, the designs for our underwater vehicles are taking shape!

 

The Engineering-Design Cycle

Our "20,000 Geeks Under the Sea" engineering Winterim started with productive discussions about how everyday items are designed and what our Winterim design challenge is. We learned some simple soldering techniques and built a power cable component for our underwater vehicle. Tomorrow, we cover buoyancy!