Our Table at the Engineering ExpoI'm a week-and-a-half late on posting this entry, but better late than never. The Engineering Expo on Feb 18th was a big success. Lots of people came by and talked to us. Most were very interested in what we're doing. There were a lot of families there, so hopefully we inspired a few kids. We let people move the joystick and watch the thrusters respond, but there was one annoying kid who grabbed the joystick and slammed it back and forth without even looking at the thrusters! Some kids need a good spanking. Fortunately most were well behaved.

There was also one adult worth mentioning. At first he seemed really interested, but then he asked if the ROV would be radio controlled or tethered and after we explained why all ROVs are tethered (radio frequencies don't penetrate water very well) he exclaimed, "What a stupid design!" and walked off.

As soon as we finished gluing the frame together (and waiting for the glue to set) we mounted all four thrusters. Our power supply also arrived this week, so I've started testing the electronics and software. I've developed a Visual Basic program that interfaces with a joystick to drive the thrusters. The ROV is a big priority for us this week because we're going to have a table at the Engineering Expo at Sac State this Sunday (tomorrow). We're planning to have an interactive demo where people can grab the joystick and run the thrusters. We're also planning to continuously run our ME 190 presentation on Jacob's laptop.

Our ROV frame assembly is complete and we've bonded the piece together using an ABS adhesive. It's exciting to be making progress. It was a really a surprise to all of us how small the frame is. We've been working with drawings and 3D models all last semester and it just seemed like the frame would be bigger. This is a good size though. We put a lot of effort into making our ROV as small as possible. The frame is 19" long, 12" wide, and just 7" tall (with the fairing the ROV will be about 10" tall).

I've uploaded our ME190 (the first of a two semester class) senior project presentation. I was hoping to find a better way to distribute it online, but I haven't had time for that and we have to keep moving forward with the project. You'll have to download the zip file and uncompress it to a folder. Then just double-click on the .exe file and use your spacebar or arrowkeys to browse the presentation. You may need a PC as I haven't tried this on a Macintosh yet.

I'd tried something new for this presentation. Typically presentations are done with Microsoft Powerpoint, but I've found PowerPoint to be very limiting, especially if you want to tightly integrate video or animation into it. Of the presentations I've watched, it seems like half the time the videos won't even play. So, for this presentation, I've put the whole thing together using Macromedia (Adobe) Flash. It's a little bit more work, but now that I've figured it out and got the whole thing set up it's just as easy as Powerpoint to add slides. The big advantage is that I can do things that Powerpoint can't -- like seemlessly transition between scenes and play video that actually works.

This website has been up for a couple months now, but I finally finished a new design for it. The home page will now be a place for news about our project and we've posted more detailed project information on other pages. Once we start the construction phase we'll have a lot more to write about (and take pictures of).

Classes haven't even started, but we've already formed a group, selected a project, and starting working. Our team is made up of three members: myself (Benjamin Shell), Jacob McGrew, and Derek Hartl. We're mechanical engineering students at Sacramento State University taking our senior project design classes (ME 190 and 191). The project we've choosen to design and build is a submersible robot (ROV). Many details will follow in the weeks and months to come, so check back here often. We hope you will enjoy the blog.