Team Status Report (4/12)

Team Status Report

Our waterproof motors arrived this week! This allowed us to remove the makeshift motor mounting system that we had developed (rip stem kit 🙏) and work on integrating these instead. Additionally, we set a goal of having an operational boat – out of water – by class this upcoming Monday.

In order to achieve this goal, we are sidebarring the ML and image stitching portions of the project temporarily, and focusing on finalizing integration. We’re planning to meet tomorrow (Sunday) to complete the last touches, but so far this week we completed the following:

• Soldered all of the arduino components
• Finished waterproofing the boat base
• Sanded down the boat base
• Integrated the pH sensor
• Mounted the propeller motors

On Sunday (tomorrow) we are planning on addressing the following boat assembly tasks:

• Deciding on the material for the underwater section of the boat, working towards designing a solution
• Screwing in the underwater motors

And the following integration tasks:

• Adding stepper motor code onto the Arduino Cloud (Emma and Maddie)
• Adding the pH sensor onto the Arduino Cloud (Emma and Abie)

We’re running into an issue with the z-direction that will be further addressed this weekend, after this update is posted. In summary, the spool is bigger than necessary, and the wood keeps getting worn down, causing the axle to skip steps. We have a few possible ways to fix this – some more intensive than others – however, we are waiting on everything else to be mounted on the boat. We anticipate having to add counterweights to the boat once everything is mounted, so waiting to address the spool will let us know if we can resolve the issues in such a way that also minimizes balance concerns.

For more details about the progress of individual sectors of the project, see Abie, Emma, and Maddie’s status reports 🙂

In the coming week, we will begin testing in the water of the UC pool. Abie and Emma will be meeting with the aquatics director on Monday (4/14) to discuss when we can do the water testing. Maddie will be finalizing the Z-direction movement. Abie will work on testing the ML algorithm with in water images. We all will work on the final presentation slides together and Emma will be giving the presentation next week.