Team Status Report (3/29/25)

This week, our team made the discovery that our propeller motors – which were marketed as waterproof – are, in fact, not waterproof and cannot be submerged in water as we planned. As a team, we researched new motors and other solutions, ultimately landing on extending the axles such that the motors are above water and at an angle. Implementing this design change before interim demos was important, and required all hands on deck.

As a team, we scavenged campus for the parts we needed, including longer motor axles, various sized axle adapters, etc. Techspark and IDeATe were both very helpful in this endeavor 🫶!! 

Most of the work done to implement this update was pretty communally tackled by the team – notably, Abie specifically led the charge on 3D printing an adapter for the motor axle to the longer one that we sourced, Emma worked on restructuring our propellor and figuring out how to angle the new set-up, and Maddie focused on making holes in our beloved boat and waterproofing. Attaching them at the correct angle, and in such a way that didn’t restrict movement, was a team effort. After the interim demo, we will be focusing on waterproofing our systems and making seamless connection between the photos being generated and the image stitching algorithm. Also, we will complete testing procedures. 

We also discussed options for our final demonstration that we are still working on. We are considering purchasing a pool to demonstrate our boat and camera system, or setting up our station inside the UC pool. The latter option might not be possible because there is scheduled recreational swim time during the final demo time, but we will ask the aquatics director anyway.