About the Competition
The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) in conjunction with the U.S. Office of Naval Research host an annual competition in which teams from across the world develop autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), also called RoboSubs, that have certain abilities which are used to accomplish tasks within an obstacle course. AUVSI’s primary goal of the competition is to “advance the development of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) by challenging a new generation of engineers to perform realistic missions in an underwater environment.” It is the hope that the event not only helps to connect young engineers and the organizations developing AUV technologies, but also encourage excitement about STEM careers.
The competition is located in San Diego, CA at the TRANSDEC pool (pictured to the right) and is to take place July 20 - 26, 2015. This week includes several days of practice and two competition rounds. Performance during each round determines the progress of a team through the competition. In order to proceed with the competition, the sub must pass through a validation gate made of PVC pipe. After that, the following tasks are available for completion (based on the 2014 competition rules): |
· Follow a path of orange line segments that guide the sub between tasks
· Bump a moored LED buoy that is alternating between Red and Green. Bump until buoy is stuck on green. Then bump a regular red buoy, followed by the regular green buoy. · Maneuver around/over PVC by passing over the horizontal section, to the left or right of the center Red riser and inside the outer Green risers. · Drop one marker in a bin with the primary alien target, and one marker in a bin with the secondary alien target. · Fire a torpedo though a small hole in a target. · Remove a red power pin that is a steel washer attached to a blue circle by a magnet, and then place the washer back in its original position. · Capture one or more Mars rocks (red) or cheese blocks (green) and deliver them to the Sample box. · Surface inside the proper PVC octagon based on which set of acoustic pingers are making sound. This project would allow the team to develop a sub for the competition based on the work of teams in previous years and ideally compete this coming summer. |
About the Team
Samantha Cherbonneau |
Kevin Matungwa |
Elliot Mudrick |