On April 23rd, the CRLS Underwater Robotics team beat out 14
teams from throughout New England to win the New England regional
competition at Mass Maritime Academy. This qualified the team to move
onto the International Underwater Robotics competition in the Neutral
Buoyancy Lab in Houston, Texas in June.
Designed
after the Gulf oil spill from last summer, teams were challenged with
the task of designing, building, and flying underwater robots (ROVs) to
complete a series of missions that real world scientists and engineers
struggled with to get the gushing oil spill under control.
The
competition setting was NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Lab, the largest indoor
pool in the world filled with mock-ups of the International Space
Station and the payload bay of the Space Shuttle. The team’s ROV had to
navigate a mission of removing the broken riser pipe, turning the valve
to stop the flow of oil, and then capping the oil pipe. The team then
had to collect water samples at a specified depth and biological samples
of ‘critters’ from the sea floor, all within a 15-minute time frame.
The CRLS team was up against 24 teams from 9 countries including high schools colleges and universities.
The
mission is intended to pose many real world engineering challenges and
the CRLS team had designed and implemented multiple effective and
efficient components to meet these challenges including dual video
cameras, high and low torque motors, efficient thrusters, a
multifunction gripper arm, a bidirectional rotational arm, and a unique
water sampling device all controlled through a tether by a pilot on the
surface watching color video screens.
The gods of marine
engineering were not with us on the day of the competition though. After
many advance tests of the systems, two electrical shorts, one in the
gripper arm and then one in the vertical thrusters prevented the team
from being successful in the mission and from showing off what the ROV
could really accomplish.
The team leaves Houston disappointed
with the electrical issues but confident in the knowledge that the ‘bot
that they built and the systems that they designed were very competitive
with the teams from around the world.'
Next years competition
scenario won’t be released until later in the fall of this year but the
CRLS team is already thinking about upgrades and improvements to again
be competitive in the International realm of Underwater Robotics.
Special
thanks go out to our supporters and financial sponsors who make
opportunities such as this a reality for our students at CRLS:
Dr.
Chris Saheed and the CRLS/CPS/RSTA administration, Draper Labs,
Raytheon IDS, Piledrivers Union 56, J.F Contracting Co., Mr. Mark Levin
and the Possible Project, and Ms Adelaide Teel.
Join us! We’re always looking for new team members, sponsors, and supporters!
CRLS Underwater Robotics current team members:
Faculty Mentor: Mr. Paul McGuinness
Captain and pilot: Alex Chiclana ‘11
Amy Campbell ’12
Eric Macomber ‘11
Simran Dhillon ’12
Imtiyaz Hossain ’13
Jonah Saltzman ’13
Jonathon Park ’13