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Meeting Notes

Added by Sam Dyment over 12 years ago

Hey everyone, I plan on posting meeting notes here so that anyone who missed one can see what went on.


Replies (4)

September 19 meeting - Added by Sam Dyment over 12 years ago

September 19th meeting notes:
Hey everyone,

The meeting today went very well. To those of you who couldn't make
it: we reviewed the project, the objectives, some of the tasks, and
introduced initial missions to design the robots for. I stressed the
fact that we need to take baby steps, we cannot get everything right
on the first try. The group was split into three teams: Mechanical,
Programming, and Electrical. Upon breaking into groups, different
tasks were given out and discussed. I'm hoping to make the groups meet
at different times so that people who are interested in working with
more than one group can do so. If you were unable to make it to the
meeting, let me know which groups you are interested in, and I will
add you to the group email list. I will send out the list once I hear
back from the people who were unable to attend.

Our objectives for the swarm (likely to change):
-Communication between robots
-Moving underwater
-Map environment
-Map other robots
-Process data
-Navigate autonomously

Groups:

Mechanical
-Chassis design
-Waterproofing
-Propulsion
-Assembly of robot

Electrical
-Sensor packages
-Motor control
-Communication system
-3d mapping system
-Robot tracking system

Programming
-Swarm hierarchy & individual job selection
-Processor selection
-Feedback and control
-Data processing
-Guidance & pathfinding

Some missions to aim for (likely to change):
1) Communicate underwater
2) Track other robots underwater
3) Follow the leader
4) Map underwater objects
5) Navigate through underwater obstacles

Sorry for the long email. Again, if you want to be signed up for some
of these groups, email me your Andrew id, the groups you are
interested in, and your name.

September 26th meeting - Added by Sam Dyment over 12 years ago

First, a quick recap of the meeting yesterday:
We broke up into the three teams (electrical, programming, and
mechanical) and each team was given specific tasks to work towards.

The electrical team was given the task of getting a signal sent
underwater. It looks like they will be testing a radio underwater
soon. They also were tasked with finding a way to determine the
distance between two points. (it's looking like sonar)

The programming team will be tasked with playing around with motor
control on our test platform once it is up and running.

The mechanical team was tasked with developing a cheap waterproof
motor that can be tested on the testing platform.

Also, we are planning on getting the test platform robot up and
running some time this weekend. (Tentatively Saturday at noon) We will
be adding motor controllers, attaching the tether, and waterproofing
the main box. If you are interested in participating, let me know if
this time works by emailing me at .

On another note, a box labeled Underwater Swarm was found in the club,
it seemed to contain an assortment of electrical components and
manuals. I'm planning on looking through this on Saturday as well.

October 3rd Meeting - Added by Sam Dyment over 12 years ago

During the meeting on October 3rd, Andrew wrote up what we were to accomplish for the meeting.
1 Everyone was to set up a redmine account.

2 We broke into groups to develop experimental procedures for testing.

Each group went over what they wanted to accomplish:
Electrical & Programming
Data Transmission

The Data transmission task is to find a way to send data from point a to point b underwater. What the data is, and its protocol are not important at this point.

The group is looking seriously at testing a radio transmitter and receiver underwater. An arbitrary maximum distance of ~10 feet was chosen to test for. This will be tested in the pool upstairs when it has been built. There was much talk about what we were testing, what we would be able to transmit, what we were optimizing, how to reduce signal loss, etc. The following article was mentioned: (http://vger.aa.washington.edu/publications/msee_thesis_patrick_bettale_final.pdf) It seemed to have a lot of relevant information.

The next step is to settle on a transmitter/receiver pair to test underwater to prove that we can get the range we want and to design a way to test the pair.
Location Finding

The group mentioned different methods of finding other robots. different triangulation techniques were mentioned. The first step for this task is to test a rangefinding method. Wether it be sonar or something else has yet to be determined. Other relevant tasks are to find an accurate method to determine depth.

Mechanical
Motor Testbed

The group started to build a bollard test unit. The purpose of the test was to find the power requirements of motors and the thrust they are able to give. It was not finished, but most of it is complete. The group is planning on meeting at some point to finish assembling it.
(http://swimmythang.blogspot.com/2007/03/testing-thrust-of-your-motors.html)
Waterproofing Motors

The group has ordered a few motors, and will need to develop ways to effectively waterproof them. This has yet to be discussed.

RE: Meeting Notes Oct 31 - Added by Sam Dyment over 12 years ago

Sorry for the silence, here's an update on everything.

General
-Let me know if you have any concerns with anything in the robotics
club/underwater swarm. I can bring them up to the officers this week
at the meeting.
-The website will be updated soon with our goals and a rendition of
some of our concepts. You can access the Solidworks files on the
robotics server at (W:\sdyment\USwarm). Feel free to copy the files to
your folder and mess around with them.
Oct 31 Meeting

Electronics/Programming
-These guys are working through the details on the radio tests. We
have ordered parts and are hoping that they will come in by friday. If
all goes well, we might be testing above water communication next
Monday. The parts that were ordered are listed on the redmine. We are
temporarily using an arduino from the club to test it out. Once we
know that it works above water, we will be waterproofing it and
dropping it underwater.

Mechanical
-The Mech team is waiting for the waterproofing supplies to arrive
before blowing another motor :P. They should be in by friday as well.
-Yesterday, a ballast system was built using a servo and a piston. We
just need to wire it up to get it running. It looks pretty cool
though. It should be up and running next meeting

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