Stockbridge Robotics: Pool Day Success

Today both our Competition and Palau Team traveled to the Chelsea pool to test our ROV's.

We started the day with last minute packing, which reminded us how important our packing lists are.

We also made sure to test the ROV in our 5 star cattle watering trough before we left.

Here Competition team member AJ is loading a TV monitor into a teammates truck.

At the pool, we unpacked and set up. Every time we assemble the robot we have to complete our checklist, including positioning the cameras, sealing the electronics housing unit and running all the thrusters.

Engineering team leader Jeremy Spink adjusting the thrusters

Once the robot was in the pool, we had to adjust the buoyancy. With all the new changes to both the frame and electronics housing, we thought the buoyancy would be extremely hard to fix. Fortunately, we were wrong. The ROV started at around 3 lbs. positive and within a few tries we were able to get it almost perfectly neutral.

Adjusting the weight on the ROV

The next step was to drive the ROV. With making it so much smaller we had a much more powerful thrust. This allowed us to make better turns and be able to better control our ROV.

Jeremy piloting the ROV

Marketing Team member Emma Morris learning to drive the ROV.

After some time in the pool, we pulled DINGAR out and prepped him for tomorrow's pool day.

We then packed up and went back to Stockbridge and then back to class.

After school, a few of the Palau Team members came in to help finish up last minute things for tomorrow's pool day. This included painting the ROV, writing this post, charging cameras, clearing SD cards, and packing our new Deep Trekker ROV. We will be taking this to Palau as another tool in our search.