Underwater Robotics, Anyone? (cover story)

MONTEREY (Calif.); CALIFORNIA; UNITED States

This article reports on the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) developed by the Lyndhurst High School Robotics team for the 2003 Annual ROV Competition sponsored by the Marine Advanced Technology Education Center in Monterey, California. The Open Class portion of the contest called for constructing an underwater vehicle that could operate in the deep diving area of a swimming pool in approximately 14′ of water. The team's ROV had some novel design features: a self-contained onboard 12 Volts battery pack and four inflation units made from boating components. The team broke the activity into three basic sub groups. The first, electronic concerns, consisted of the circuit boards, diodes, heat sinks, and resistors needed to control a set of powerful bilge pumps. The second subgroup provided the buoyancy that controlled the vehicle's up-and-down movement. This was accomplished by moving stored compressed air via a series of T-valves and tubes into any one of four inflatable fender guards. The third task involved providing for underwater vision. The team accomplished this through the use of two special cameras that team members had to waterproof and tie in electronically with above-surface TV monitors. INSET: Construction Sequence.