Monday Memory: High School Years

I grew up on what felt like a farm. At one point we had 5 dogs, 2 cats, 3 hedgehogs, 2 sugar gliders, 18 rabbits, 3 llamas, 4 sheep, 1 horse, 2 hamsters, 1 fish, and 1 hermit crab. All of these animals were pets, not food. I was VERY active in 4-H for 2nd grade until I graduated from high school. I raised and showed rabbits, dogs, and llamas. As you may be aware 4-H consists of more than just animals, I also did sewing, cooking, Know Your Government, and Mechanical Science 4-H.

You know those people who, whenever they see a need, they jump right in and fill it? That's my dad. We owned dogs, but there was no dog 4-H leader, so my dad bought some books, did lots of research and became the dog 4-H leader. The Mechanical Science leader retired, and since my brothers had been really active in that group, my dad decided he'd lead that group too. This is where ROVs come in. Instead of the usual woodworking, rocket building, or car maintenance type of club, my dad took the idea of ROV building from the museum my brothers and I had volunteered at and made that the focus of the club. During his research he stumbled upon a ROV competition. This, he figured, would give the 4-H club something to work toward. A tangible goal and a way to show off their final product.

Side tracking for a minute...my oldest brother, David, at about this same time, was working with a small group of students and a highly skilled mentor, on building an ROV for use at Battelle. This got my dad, and my whole family even more interested in ROVs.

http://www.ptleader.com/print.asp?ArticleID=12293&SectionID=10&SubSectionID=10 

Ok, back to my story. My dad, brothers, and a couple family friends (as a 4-H team) built a ROV when I was in 8th grade and entered in the MATE ROV Competition. I have always really like building things. One of my favorite toys from my childhood is Legos. I would still sit around building thing out of Legos if I had any in my apartment. When I was a freshman in high school, I wanted to join the team. We did fairly well our first year, considering our vehicle was made out of left over parts from the ROVs we built at the Naval Undersea Museum.

My sophomore year, we were no longer affiliated with 4-H, but had a private team. Our vehicle was still made of scraps, so we named it the P.T. CruiseHER. PT=Port Townsend, HER=Hand-me-downs, Extras, and Recyclables, so together it should like the car PT Cruiser. Get it? haha. With this ROV that looked like, honestly, a pile of trash and our bubbly team spirit, we won the  regional competition! Not because our ROV did everything it needed to, but because it did a tad bit more than the ROVs of other teams. And we had a great presentation, too. Winning this competition as a high school team meant we qualified for the international competition in Newfoundland, Labrador, Canada. 

There is a long story about the international competition and how that ties in to today, so come back next week for more of the story!

2013 Competition Plans

I've spent some time giving you a look at my past, so let's take a break from that and look at what is happening right now. My club is in the design/prototype phase of building this year's ROV. You'll hear all about last years project a little further down the road and why we can't/don't want to reuse it. There are so many things I want to explain right now, so this post will jump around a bit.

1) The theme of the competition this year is Ocean Observing Systems, which is exactly what it sounds like: collecting data to observe the oceanic waters and their activity. Here are the tasks that we have to complete at the competition:


Task #1:  Complete a primary node and install a secondary node on the seafloor.
Task #2:  Design, construct, and install a transmissometer to measure turbidity over time.
Task #3:  Replace an Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) on a mid-water column mooring
platform.
Task #4:  Remove biofouling from structures and instruments within the observatory.

If you think that sounds like a foreign language, don't worry, I was totally lost at first too. I'll go into detail about the missions soon. If you understand all of those tasks then that's fantastic!

2) Here is a picture of the ROV we are building:

3) An explanation of the competition: The competition is set up so that MATE (Marine Advance Technology Education Center) represents a corporation that is seeking a company (the school teams) to design and build a ROV to help them complete a task. Each team is presents themselves as a company with a CEO, Lead Engineer, Financial Officer, etc. They build a ROV that can complete the tasks and compete for the "contract", the grand prize at the competition. The competition is open to any high school or undergraduate students world wide.

The first part of the competition is to complete the missions are best as possible, but typically only a couple teams are able to do everything in the allotted 15min. The second part of the competition is the evaluation of our team as a whole. We write a technical report outlining each aspect of the ROV and why we designed it the way we did. Each team also gives a presentation to a panel of judges and makes a display board with information about their company.

That's all I'll bombard you with for now. Check back tomorrow, for another Monday Memory!

First Monday Memory

Time for my first "Monday Memory"...

I will start at the beginning. 6th grade. I have two older brothers: David and Erik. David is 5 years older than me and Erik is 3 years older than me. When I was in 6th grade, they began a summer volunteer program at the Naval Undersea Museum in Keyport, WA. This program was 3 days a week. One day building ROVs, one day curating an exhibit for the museum lobby, and one day of doing science experiments with, and painting the faces of children. I always thought what they did sounded really exciting and couldn't wait to do it when I was old enough. 

The summer after my 8th grade year I joined the summer student guide program. I didn't really like curating an exhibit because that seemed too much like school, and after all, it was my summer vacation. The kids were always fun to play with...well maybe not "always", but that day of the week was certainly entertaining. Learning how to solder, using power tools to drill holes in boxes, and wear super cool safety goggles (while not throwing pvc piping across the room at other students ;) ) was the best part.

We built very simple ROVs from pvc piping, bilge pump motor cartridges with propellers attached, small surveillance cameras waterproofed with epoxy, and a few double-pull-double-throw switches for our controls. They were simple, but fun and easy to control in the water. At the end of the summer we took our ROVs to a swimming pool on the Navy base and  tested them out. Our instructors threw some things on the bottom of the pool for us to have our ROVs pick up with the coat hangers attached to the front of their frames.

I spent 3 summers volunteering at the Naval Undersea Museum, and so did my brothers. Who would think that a small fraction of an 8 week middle school summer volunteer program would have a big impact on what you do in college? Now I'm sure you're wondering how that led me to an international ROV competition. I'm getting to it, so stay tuned.

What is this blog about?

Maybe you have heard of ROVs (Remotely Operated Vehicles) before and are curious what my experiences are with them, or maybe you are seeing "robots under the sea" and your have a puzzled look on your face that says "why in the world would you put robots in the water??' That sounds bizarre but kind of neat." Either way, you are welcome to read this blog. I am going to be outlining my past experience building this "underwater robots" (in quotations because they aren't technically 'robots') and my present experiences as I lead a university team that is building a ROV for the 2013 Annual International MATE (Marine Advanced Technology Education) ROV Competition.

To give you a quick idea of what an ROV is, picture a metal or plastic frame with a couple of cameras, and a handful of propellers swimming through the water. Then imagine a cable that runs to the surface from the ROV so the pilot can maneuver the vehicle with just a handheld controller and a television monitor. ROVs can be anywhere from the size of a shoe box to the size of a small house. For the purpose of this competition we keep ours closer to the shoe box size. 

Now you may be wondering, "What are these things used for?" Ever wondered how we received footage of the inside of the Titanic, how we get samples off the ocean floor, retrieve test torpedoes, or repair broken oil wells? ROVs. The conditions under water are often too dangerous for human divers, so what better way to get the work done than with a ROV. Each year the MATE Competition centers around a different theme. This year the theme is Ocean Observing Systems. Learn about the competition tasks here.