pic: Front of ROV ALLAN at dawn for the news

[falconmaster]

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[Gabe]

Wow, your ROV has changed a lot since I last saw your team mentioned in that WIRED story. It is beautiful though, and nice to see a team expand beyond FIRST robotics to embrace other things.
Oh, and I see a lot of fiberglass...

[Jon Jack]

I thought those grabbers looked familiar I have one disassembled on my desk... at SeaBotix.

Then seeing the SeaBotix LBV decal and at least 3 (I'm assuming there's actually 4 or 5 since you have them in a vector alignment) of our thrusters confirmed my suspicion.

It's nice to see some of the things I've worked with and have had a hand in improving being used in this competition.

Not to take anything away from FIRST, but if any of think designing these ROVs is easy think again. There's another dimension you must take into account designing things for an underwater application. It's not like you can just snap something together and see how it runs. You've got to make sure things are sealed properly, that electrical connections are isolated from the water (you can't use regular old quick connects, hence the existence of companies like SubConn and Odu), you've also got to worry about how the weight of an accessory will effect the buoyancy of your device, plus you've got to take into account how some materials will react and corrode underwater and what treatments/surface finishes can help prevent that from happening. It can be quiet the challenge...

[falconmaster]

Yes our ROV have changed alot and yes it is very challenging. We do want more FIRST teams to get involved. We are planning our next event for Oct. Nov sometime and that will be the permanent date. The video footage of the teams will be up shortly in the mean time check out the event pictures link on the www.h2orobots.org website. Look for the announcment of the new mission soon!!!

[yodameister]

FRC 1726 will be there! We had a BLAST! The venue was top notch. And plan to see more fiberglass than on 842, we have a large supply just waiting to be used.

[yodameister]

Originally Posted by Jon Jack

Not to take anything away from FIRST, but if any of think designing these ROVs is easy think again. There's another dimension you must take into account designing things for an underwater application. It's not like you can just snap something together and see how it runs. You've got to make sure things are sealed properly, that electrical connections are isolated from the water (you can't use regular old quick connects, hence the existence of companies like SubConn and Odu), you've also got to worry about how the weight of an accessory will effect the buoyancy of your device, plus you've got to take into account how some materials will react and corrode underwater and what treatments/surface finishes can help prevent that from happening. It can be quiet the challenge...

You are sooooo correct about this. This was our first try at underwater and we learned the hard way about water testing without having the power turned on. We went through a few cameras until we figured out how to correctly waterproof something.

[robostangs548]

That is one awesome looking ROV, good job!