Bench Inspection

On Friday we had our bench inspection. Our chance to display our project work and present our research, thought process and finished result.

We were assessed by two people, a laboratory demonstrator and our supervisor. With the demonstrator we answered his questions at ease but received no feedback for any of our work so we were clueless to how well we had done.
Our supervisor gave us more constructive criticism, most notably our poster was too text heavy and seemed to be in a fairly illogical order, though visually pleasing. Aside from this he was happy with our presentation and the answer we gave to his challenging questions.

We felt that it was a successful day and are happy with the final result, though this could be vastly improved upon if we had a bigger time scale. We just need to work on our project report now which is due in a couple of weeks.

Our poster:

full size image here

A link to our poster is

Last Laboratory Session

On Friday we had our last laboratory session. A lot of this time was spent neatening the circuit by shortening wires, making sure everything was on veroboard and soldered correctly ready to be placed inside the submarine body.

Testing and altering the sonar took most of the laboratory session we had to calculate the speed of sound underwater compared to air, this was approximately ¼ of the speed and so we have to alter the Arduino UNO code. However with these calculations and changing other variables within the code we still struggled to get the sonar working underwater. It is too late to get another component but the team agreed we should have got a sonar device specifically for underwater use rather than choosing a cheaper component.

The rest of the session was spent adding the circuit into the UAV and sealing it in and waterproofing it. Due to the sonar problems it has been left out of the circuit and we have put the backup code on the Arduino.

Finished result:

Unfortunately we have had problems with buoyancy and hoping to sort them out before the bench inspection.

It's Alive!

The submarine is now taking shape and looking more and more like a finished product. Since the last laboratory session the motors have been placed in film canisters with Vaseline and sealed in. Two of these have then been attached to the back of what is to be the submarine, what is currently the top of a plastic bottle. After being sealed using epoxy and PVA glue (as an extra precautionary layer) it was then wrapped in red electrical tape and drawn on for aesthetic purposes.

In the laboratory session an additional power supply and switch were added to the circuit, the diagram of which is in the previous blog post. This was then tested, with it working we are now neatening and finishing the circuit for it to be implemented in the submarine.

We also waterproofed and tested the ultrasound component in the water, though this didn't return good results and so we need to come up with a solution for the next laboratory session

We also successfully sealed and filled the tank we are testing the submarine in. This was done by filled all the holes with cork, both ends then sealed with white tac and then on the outside tape was added for added security.

Below is a video of the motors being tested in the water.

Tasks for next week:

Finish submarine casing

Neaten and finalise circuit

Test AUV as a final product in tank

Evaluate progress and final result