Project overview

Problem Overview

  The Sea Perch is one of the several ROV designs included in "Build Your Own Under Water Robot and Other Wet Projects” by Harry Bohm and Vickie Jensen. Our design problem is to make our sea perch be able to keep balance and collect amount of water in different depth and parts. We will focus on the physical change of the sea perch. Microcontroller, wires and switches are needed to make the remote controller up. By using the controller, we can let our sea perch do all direction moving. We want to make our sea perch as more bionic as possible, because it will help the sea perch move more smooth and avoid animals’ attacking.

Design Constrains

  The main structure will be made by PVC pipe. PVC’s full name is Polyvinyl Chloride. There are several reasons why we choose PVC as the main material:

• Cost effectiveness
• Rigidity (resistance to bending)
• Availability
• Resistance to dropping or impact
• Safe handling
• Waterproofing

 We also need the electric motors to be our motive power, and we will set two or more propellers to push the water away from the sea perch and make it move. The microcontroller, wires and switches will make the remote controller. The depth sensor will be set on our sea perch to detect the different depth of water.

  The whole sea perch cannot be too big, because the resistance will be very big and the sea perch will be heavy and hard to control. The structure should be stable and solid.

Pre-Existing Solutions

Since Remote Operated Submersible (ROS) or Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) has been widely used in education and military fields for years, there are several existing designs for sea perch. Here are some typical designs:

MIT Sea Perch

As the Pioneer of the field, MIT Sea Grant College Program started the Sea Perch Program in 2003. In purpose of enhancing the design and build skills of students, the program provide a series of supports, from technical guide for the Sea Perch ROV build to Sea Perch Institute, which is a yearlong teacher training course.

                                                   An Sea Perch Model

Greater Philadelphia Sea Perch Challenge

Several sea perch competitions were held in countrywide. One of the competitions is the Greater Philadelphia Sea Perch Challenge, which is an annual competition that a large quantity of students was involved.

Project Goal

The design of the sea perch would concentrate on the making physical modifications. The project contains, but not limited the following goals:

l  Create a remote controllable sea perch which is stable in water

l  Be able to differentiate and move towards each direction when underwater

l  Be able to detect and collect the water sample in different depth

l  Has bionic shape, moving smoothly in water, which is unique from the pre-existing design

l  Sustainable, avoid unnecessary wastes as much as possible

Project Deliverables

This project is going to make a model of sea perch which can keep balance in the water and have a sensor to “know” the depth of water. The use of this sea perch is going to collect water in different depth. The whole sea perch will be wrapped by oilpaper to be fish like by taking the advantage of bionic. In the back of the sea perch, two motors will be placed to control the forward and backward movement, as well as the revolving of the sea perch. There are two bottles on the top of the sea perch, which can control the upward and downward of the sea perch by adding or dropping water. Controlling depth can also be assisted by a depth sensor. All these parts are connected on the main structure which is constructed by PVC pipes. In addition, there is a controller which is connected to the sea perch by wire.

Project Schedule

l  Week 3: Design proposal. Receive sea perch kits and start to make up to have a main structure which is based on PVC pipes.

l  Week 4: Put motors, sensors, bottle, etc. on the main structure to finish the structure building part and modify it more bionic.

l  Week 5: Modify the sensor by doing some experiments on the depth sensor.

l  Week 6: Circuit connection and modify the controller to achieve the goal to control the movement of the sea perch.

l  Week 7: The first test on our sea perch in water to find the weak points and problems.

l  Week 8: Keep on modifying the sea perch and test it to keep balance and detect the depth.

l  Week 9: Keep testing to find any problem existing and work on the final report and other deliverables.

l  Week 10: Lab report finished and prepare for the presentation.

Budget and Expenses

·         Materials                                                                     

- 1 x engine     -$ 50

- 4 x PVC      -$ 30

- 1 x board      -$ 30

- 2 x wires       -$20

·         Controllers

- 1 x remote control    -$ 30

·         Miscellaneous

                                                             - 4 x oil papers       -$ 10

Final total cost                                       -$ 170