Mt SAC ROV Mark IV

Here are a couple videos of the robot driving...

Coral Reef

Hey guys here is my completed Coral Reef we can use for testing? I hope this is right, it looks right to me?

New Prototyping Chassis

Greetings submarine enthusiasts,

Here are some photos of the new prototyping chassis for the robosub team, mark IV. It may not look like much, however it has many benefits over the previous versions.

The first image is an isometric view, for a sense of scale, it has been placed on a standard school desk. The first thing you may notice is that the motors are some what undersized, but that will change when the new motors arrive this week.

 The next photo is a top view, and in it you can see that the drive motors are slightly behind the center of the chassis. This is to balance the cameras and sensors which are in the front. 

The next view is from the front.

The new shape may not look very stream lined, but its boxy shape actually allows for more fine tuning of the ballast and trim weights. All along the bottom pvc there will be holes drilled to allow weights to hang. These holes will be uniformly spaced so that adjustment of trim will be as simple as undoing and redoing a nut. The top pvc rails allow the ballast to be moved left, right, forward and backward to properly distribute the buoyant force. The climb motor has been placed approximately in the center of the chassis, which should allow for stable climbing and descending.

Tasks remaining to be completed on this chassis:

Build a pvc structure which extends beyond the motors so that we cannot crash them into the walls or tangle the tether into them.

Drill the holes in the PVC for trim

Interesting lesson learned during the fabrication of this chassis is that a 13/16th spade bit will create a hole which creates a sufficiently tight fit to 1/2 inch pvc pipe.