VT AUVT

Yet again I feel I must apologize for not updating this site again.  It turns out that on the last day of competition they limit internet access to finalists only, which means that tonight is the first time I’ve had a good internet connection since Saturday (or July 24th, really).  I hope you got to watch the finals live on the webcast, but if you didn’t the video should be online in a few weeks.  The results were no surprise, but watching some of the final runs was still a lot of fun (as fun as AUV watching can be, anyway).  If you check out the daily videos on the competition site (linked below in the right column), you will see our AUV in the 3rd day video at time 1:07 to 1:12.  Unfortunately that’s all of the video of us that made it online, but I will try to post photos ASAP.

The last two days of competition were decidedly less stressful, since we completed our final run of the competition at8:00 Saturday morning and had little to look forward to for Saturday and Sunday.  Since we had made friends with the NC State team on Friday by street-racing them on the way back from Transdec, we got to know them a bit better and one of us eventually challenged the other to an AUV race.  We finished one last “practice” run to capture some more video (and almost hit the flare!), then we trekked over to the Kona Kai resort pool (via downtown San Diego, that’s another long story) to see who had the fastest AUV in town.

We all put our AUVs in the water and started driving them around, at which point we immediately had network problems.  While we waited on fresh batteries for our wireless buoy, the NCSU team had plenty of time to reconfigure all five of their thrusters to thrust forward instead of down (we only have 2 forward thrusters!)  Even though we were far outmatched in power (2 thrusters at 14V vs 5 at 24V (that’s 5 times more!)), our advantage in weight and hydrodynamics made up for the difference.  Unfortunately, we soon discovered that our heading control loop is not optimized for high speed, and we have to operate at 30% of maximum thrust to go in a straight line.  Undeterred, I attempted to steer Barreleye manually, and found that our thrusters are unbalanced and cause the AUV to turn sharply left when driven at full speed.  Seawolf (NCSU’s AUV) even managed to beat us while dragging one of their team members!

The next day we didn’t do much besides talk to people about our AUV and watch some of the finals runs.  It was still a lot of fun to hang out with everyone and talk shop.  After the competition was over everyone headed to the awards ceremony/party, which was held on the beach at the Kona Kai resort.  The awards were presented, and everyone had a blast (BananaPhone, anyone?).  As we were leaving, we heard that NCSU was planning to race Seawolf against a team member from the Maryland team.  We had to get going across the country the next morning, so we weren’t able to stick around and find out what happened.  If you know, please leave a comment!

I’m writing this from West Memphis, Arkansas (next to Memphis, TN), because it’s the first place I’ve had good internet access.  On the way here from San Diego we stopped by a lot of fun places like Las Vegas (saw the fountains at the Bellagio), the Hoover Dam (and bridge!), and the Grand Canyon (which is really big, btw).  Tomorrow night Barreleye will be once again safe and sound at the lab in Blacksburg.  Once I get there there you will hear a lot more from us.

On the surface Barreleye seems to have lost both races this year, but in the end we all had a lot of fun and made some new friends while we were at it.  The trip has been so much more than we expected, and we have learned more things about AUVs and the American Southwest than we thought possible.  We have a lot of new ideas and a whole summer of experience behind us now, so I think we’ll be the team to beat next year!  We can’t wait!