MRT Alaska Trip - August 2012

After mentoring in the Engineering Design Workshop each day, I worked with the MIT Marine Robotics Team to prepare for a testing trip in Alaska. Over the course of June and July we prepared two gliders for testing in a pool and in open water. One of the gliders was about two and a half feet long and served as a proof-of-concept model and experimental platform for sensors such as GPS, pressure, and dive/rise indicators.

Tommy and Baby glider

The second glider was our main focus. At five feet long and 60 lbs operating weight (about 45 lbs without ballast), it was tons of fun to bring through TSA... twice. After an hour long private security scan and half a day of travel, everything and everyone made it to Ketchikan safely.

Bubble wrap + greenie

The people at Ketchikan Gateway Borough very kindly let us use their dive pool for testing almost every day during the trip. It was an excellent place to test because the pool was nearly empty at 8am and we could easily trim the glider, check for leaks, test sensors, and get great footage from a GoPro mounted on Tom's ROV at the same time.

And they had a slide two slides.

The team also helped with a program called SeaGlide, which introduced middle school students to the world of underwater vehicles and showed them how to make mini-gliders using water bottles and an arduino. The program was spearheaded by Robert Vieth who specializes in STEM outreach in Alaska. Several employees from the Carderock division of NAVSEA also helped with the program.

Cleaning up a few of the 3D printed parts with our fancy knives

We also toured SEAFAC, but weren't allowed to take pictures most of the time, probably for a good reason. The best I could do for photos were a few on the boat ride out and one in their machine shop.

Biggest lathe I've ever seen

Lastly, the highlight of the trip happened after we had been given a tour of the mariculture facility and were allowed to test our large glider after showing it to the kids in the SeaGlide program. Gary Freitag was kind enough to let us use his SeaBotix ROV to get footage of the glider in the ocean. It also had a manipulator arm that we could use to grab the glider in case the glider decided it didn't want to come back up. That didn't happen, but the first untethered run was pretty terrifying/awesome anyway.

And so we put the buoyancy engine on a timer, dropped the glider in the ocean, and waited. David was in a kayak and I was piloting the ROV and everyone else was useless. Just kidding, they helped feed the tether off of the 800' spool. 

Warning: the awesomeness of the story that follows is not accurately portrayed over the internet. I'm not even going to try.

- Glider put in water

- Glider floats, refuses to sink despite pleas of MRT

- Two washers zip tied to back of glider

- Glider is pretty darn close to perfectly trimmed

- Glider starts dive cycle

- Dive looks good

- People start to remember that there is no tether

- Excitement ensues

- David is alone outside because everyone is inside looking at the ROV screen

- 20' below surface

- 30' below surface - we reached our target depth for the trip!

- Glider still diving

- People start to freak out

- Tom tells Adrian, "DON'T LOSE THE GLIDER. STAY WITH IT"

- Adrian stays with the glider

- 43' below surface

- GLIDER STARTS TO PULL OUT OF DIVE

- GLIDER COMES BACK UP TO THE SURFACE

- EVERYONE IS GOING CRAZY

- WE DID IT! WE DID IT!

- WOOOOOOOOOO

A video of our most glorious moment, accompanied by appropriate music follows. A few notes: the FS at the bottom stands for Feet Seawater, and the CA stands for Camera Angle. This is how we got our depth reading for the glider.

After we pulled the glider out, we got to have some fun with the ROV. Ed ended up stabbing picking up a sea cucumber from 200' and brought it up. When it got to the surface, it was a bit floppy from the pressure change, but fortunately it didn't evacuate its bowels on us, as sea cucumbers are known to do.

warp speed

"It's what's for dinner"

After returning the sea cucumber to its home and packing up, we merrily feasted on land animals, as seen in the following picture.

Kodak moment

Stator Wrapping and Xbox Case Mod Preview

I finally got off the ground with (name TBA) scooter's drive system. After many months of planning and procrastination, I began wrapping my stator... and boy do my thumbs hurt. Shane told me before I began that there is a spectrum of quality of stator wrapping from neat and meticulous to quick and dirty. I chose to pursue the neat and meticulous path because a more tightly wound stator would be a more powerful one. A side effect of this path is that my right thumb and forefinger are now throbbing from pulling as hard as I could on wire for an hour straight. I am not looking forward to wrapping another 11 teeth, but it must be done!

This just popped into my head: I might call this project Time Scooter. Because I've been working on it since August. We'll see if the name sticks.

Here are some pictures from the day:

Wrapping configuration diagram

Wrapping two strands at the same time is tough.

Another project I've been doing on the side this past week is creating a clear case for my xbox made from acrylic. Unfortunately 3-402 has been (hopefully temporarily) closed before MIT's IAP starts, at which point it will be occupied full time by a class. I haven't been able to make any new parts, but I have started to model the case in SolidWorks. So far I have taken my Xbox apart four times, designed and made a prototype of the motherboard mount... and that's about it. I was aiming to complete this project before school starts again, but that might not happen because of the fabrication delay.

Let's see what this thing looks like on the inside.

What an Xbox looks like on the inside.

Might be tough to see (it's clear!) but here we have the first version of the motherboard mounting piece.

Hard drive module, disassembled

Ideally I will buy a ~120 Gb 2.5" hard drive and format it to xbox's native system so I don't have to spend exorbitant amounts of money for a tiny amount of space. The current drive was $80 for a 20 Gb USED, which I find to be absolutely ridiculous.

ALASKA UPDATE!
I just got off the phone with Ed Moriarty, who is currently in McGrath, Alaska, and he says the Aurora Bears are a huge success! The kids up there are having a great time making the bear assemblies, and even the superintendent of schools showed up to make one!

End Year Post: Aurora Bearealis

Happy New Year, everyone! I'll spare the little details, but boy, 2011 was quite an adventure. A year ago I would have never thought I'd be where I am now, and it's still amazing to me how lucky I've been.

Goals for 2012:

1) Create something new that has the potential to improve someone's lifestyle
2) Do something that is universally regarded as "totally awesome, dude"

(Goals may be changed, removed, or added over the course of the year)

On to the engineering part of the post:

The past week was incredibly hectic. Ed Moriarty is headed to Alaska on Tuesday to promote interest in science and engineering in young kids. To help him achieve this goal, I designed and mass-produced what he calls "Aurora Bearealis" which combines the Aurora Borealis (northern lights) with UAF's Aurora Bear logo.

Over the past 96 hours, I've spent about 50 of them at the Edgerton Center making this project come to life. I've also consumed about a pound of boneless chicken wings and a whole pizza. That's not a lot for four days of food, but then again I really didn't find time to eat. Big thanks to Ed, Tommy, Bruno, Kenny, and the several drop-ins who took an interest in the project and helped in any way they could. Here are a few shots that were taken when I wasn't CADing or eating.

A tricky part to cut efficiently.

Approximately 150 full assemblies. In a box.

A video of the final product. Turn down your volume; the video was taken in the laser room with ventilation going at full blast.

After several days of dreaming in vector format spending more time at MIT than at home, we cranked out over 190 full assemblies, which, as I said earlier, took about two full days' time. This includes transport, setting up parts to cut in AutoCAD, cleaning machines, preparing materials for cutting, establishing cut settings, actual cutting, taking materials out of machines, cleaning machines again, testing prototypes, sorting parts, and packing them into sets of 10 or 20. It was exhausting but extremely rewarding. As put by Ed, these bears are going to make a lot of kids in Alaska really happy because they now have a really cool night light during the darkest time of the year, and the kids can say "I made that!"

TL;DR I am now one with the laser cutters in 3-402.