VT AUVT

The Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Team is a tight-knit group of Virginia Tech students in Blacksburg, VA who share an interest in intelligent robots that lurk in bodies of water. Every year we design or manufacture an underwater robot for an international student competition hosted by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) in San Diego.  The AUVSI/ONR competition serves to present us with a design goal, a set of constraints and challenges to drive our AUV design.  The challenge itself is an underwater obstacle course, set in the Navy’s TRANSDEC facility, which is like a giant swimming pool.  You can read all about it here.  We just got back from the 2009 competition, and we are gearing up for another year of AUV building, so check our blog often!

Submarines. Computers. Water. Robots. If these things interest you, please contact us because we always have space for dedicated team players. If you like building things and watching your invention in action, or if programming is your strength and you live to tinker with cutting-edge technology, then feel free to join us as we try and assemble the best AUV we possibly can this year!  We are a fully multi-disciplinary team, which means you don’t even have to be an engineer! (In fact, we are looking hard for business and graphic design majors, as well as students of any and all engineering disciplines.)  Don’t worry about your past experience and what you can contribute.  The whole point is to learn!

The intent of the AUVSI competition is to produce the engineering minds of the future, with a focus on autonomous robotics and support from the Navy.  As such, our mission is to offer Virginia Tech students* an opportunity to learn outside the classroom , and to gain experience and skills that are not possible to learn from books and exams.  With AUVT, you are working a real-world engineering challenge, with real decisions to be made and real money to spend.  At the end of the year (or the summer), you will have learned more than you though possible, and have created somthing that will be proud to call the work of your own hands.  And that’s something that tuition can’t buy!

*Note: there are no specific rules in place restricting AUVT membership to Virginia Tech students.  Tech students, however, are able to take advantage of things like 24-7 lab access and access to certain internship opportunities.