Arm Thrusters, For Underwater Super Powers!

November 30, 2016 by 23 Comments

Most of us will have spent the idle hours of our youth while sitting in a room where a teacher was standing at the blackboard explaining iambic pentameter or the Diet of Wurms, daydreaming about the amazing exploits we could have created if only we had an Evil Lair stuffed with all the tools our fertile imaginations demanded. [James Bond] would have had nothing on us, our personal [Q] branch would have ensured we would have had the coolest gadgets on the planet.

As grown-ups we have some of the resources to make this a reality, yet somehow we’ve never made good on the dream. We spend our time creating IoT clocks or novelty electronic Christmas ornaments, and Mr. [Bond] still has a monopoly on the really cool stuff. Fortunately [PeterSripol] has struck a blow on our behalf, because he’s created a pair of arm-mounted underwater thrusters (YouTube, embedded below) that should leave [007] feeling definitely a bit [006.5].

The thrusters themselves came from a Kickstarter purchase that he left on the shelf for a while without an application. Then with only a short time before a trip to Hawaii, he set to work to do something with them, and the arm thrusters were the result.

He makes extensive use of components from the world of radio controlled models, with battery packs and speed controllers mounted in a waterproof food container at his belt, and a pair of handheld microswitch controllers. There is an Arduino which presumably produces the PWM signal, and we are treated to an in-depth look at his waterproofing efforts for the various connectors and switches. After a false start with battery polarity and a cracked impeller housing the device works, and we see it in use on a suitably tropical though not quite sun-kissed beach.

The thrusters appear to work very well, and we’d say they look a lot of fun to use. Sadly the exercise is brought to a halt when a control wire is sucked into a propeller, but we’re sure that’s only a minor setback. We’ve posted the video below the break, take a look.

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Hackaday Prize Entry: Profiling Underwater Light

July 28, 2016 by 5 Comments

The goal for the Citizen Science portion of the Hackaday Prize is to empower people to create their own devices to perform their own analyses For [Adam]’s project, he’s designing a device that measures the health of waterways simply by looking at the light availability through the water column. It’s called PULSE, the Profiling Underwater Light SEnsor, and is able to monitor changes that are caused by algal blooms, suspended sediments, or sewer runoff.

The design of PULSE is a small electronic depth charge that can be lowered into a water column from anything between a research vessel to a kayak. On the top of this sinkable tube is a sensor to measure photosynthetically active radiation (PAR). This sensor provides data on light irradiance through the water column and gives a great insight into the health of photosynthesis, marine plant life, and ultimately the health of any aquatic environment.

Measuring the light available for photosynthesis through a water column is great, but PULSE isn’t a one trick pony. On the bottom of the aquatic probe are three sensors designed to measure photosynthesis, dissolved organic matter, and turbidity. These sensors are really just a few LEDs and photodiodes, proving just how much science you can do with simple tools.

The goal of the Citizen Science portion of the Hackaday Prize is to put scientific discovery in the hands of everyone. PULSE is a great example of this: it’s a relatively simple device that can be thrown over the side of a boat, lowered to the bottom or a lake, and hoisted back up again. It’s inexpensive to build, but still provides great data. That’s remarkable, and an excellent example of what we’re looking for in the Hackaday Prize.

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Leg Mounted Beer Bottles For Underwater Propulsion

May 31, 2016 by 35 Comments

Sitting on the beach, finishing off a beer one day, [Rulof] realized that if he put a motor in the beer bottle with a propeller at the bottle’s mouth, he could attach the result to his leg and use it to propel himself through the water. Even without the added bonus of the beautiful Mediterranean waters through which he propels himself, this is one hack we all wish we’d thought of.

These particular beer bottles were aluminum, making cutting them open to put the motor inside easy to do using his angle grinder. And [Rulof] made good use of that grinder because not only did he use it to round out parts of the motor mounting bracket and to cut a piston housing, he also used the grinder to cut up some old sneakers on which he mounted the bottles.

You might wonder where the pistons come into play. He didn’t actually use the whole pistons but just a part of their housing and the shaft that extends out of them. That’s because where the shaft emerges from the housing has a water tight seal. And as you can see from the video below, the seal works well in the shallow waters in which he swims.

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Hacklet 98 – Underwater ROVs

March 5, 2016 by 5 Comments

A few motors, propellers, a camera, maybe a wire tether, and some waterproof electronics. Throw it all together and baby you’ve got an underwater Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) cooking! It all sounds simple on the surface, but underwater ROVs are a tough challenge. We’ve all seen deep-sea ROVs searching the wreck of the Titanic, or working to stop the flow of oil below the Deepwater Horizon. Plenty of hackers, makers, and engineers have been inspired to build their own underwater ROVs. This week on the Hacklet, we’re spotlighting at some of the best ROV projects on Hackaday.io!

borgcubeWe start with [Tim Wilkinson] and BorgCube ROV. [Tim] has jumped into the world of underwater ROVs with both feet. BorgCube is designed to operate in the unforgiving salt waters of the Pacific Ocean. This ROV can see in stereo, as [Tim] plans to use a head mounted VR display like the Oculus Rift to control it. [Tim] wanted to use a Raspberry Pi as the brains of this robot. Since the Pi Compute module can handle two cameras, it was a natural fit. The electronic speed controls are all low-cost Hobby King R/C car units. [Tim] created a custom circuit board to hold all 12 ESCs. This modular design allows individual controllers to be swapped out if one meets an untimely doom. BorgCube is just getting wet, but with 37 project logs and counting, we’re sure [Tim] will keep us posted on all the latest action!

 

lunaNext up is [MrCullDog] with Luna I ROV. Inspired by a professional underwater ROV, [MrCullDog] decided to build a deep diving unmanned vehicle of his very own. Like BorgCube above, many of Luna I’s motors and drive components come from radio controlled hobby electronics. [MrCullDog] is bringing some 3D printed parts into the mix as well. He’s already shown off some incredibly well modeled and printed thruster mounts and ducts. The brains of this robot will be an Arduino. Control is via wired Ethernet tether. [MrCullDog] is just getting started on this project, so click the follow button to see updates in your Hackaday.io Feed.

cavepearlNext up is [Edward Mallon] with The Cave Pearl Project. Not every underwater system needs motors – or even a human watching over it. The Cave Pearl Project is a series of long duration underwater data loggers which measure sea conditions like temperature and water flow. [Edward’s] goal is to have a device which can run for a year on just three AA batteries. An Arduino Pro Mini captures data from the sensors, time stamps it, and stores it to a micro SD card. If the PVC pipe enclosure keeps everything dry, the data will be waiting for [Edward] to collect months later. [Edward] isn’t just testing in a swimming pool, he’s been refining his designs in open water for a couple of years now.

 

If you want to see more under (and above) water projects, check out our updated waterborne projects list! If I missed your project, don’t be shy! Just drop me a message on Hackaday.io. That’s it for this week’s Hacklet. As always, see you next week. Same hack time, same hack channel, bringing you the best of Hackaday.io!

A Compact Underwater Vehicle: The Nanoseeker

October 25, 2014 by 36 Comments

The Nanoseeker is a compact underwater vehicle in a torpedo-like form factor. [John] designed the Nanoseeker as completely enclosed vehicle: both the thruster and the control fins are all housed within the diameter of the tube. The thruster is ducted with vents on the sides and control fins integrated into the back of the duct assembly.

[John] designed a compact PCB to drive the vehicle, which includes an STM32F4 alongside several sensors. An MPU-9150 provides IMU functionality and two dual motor driver ICs from TI control the throttle and the control fins. [John] also added a Bluetooth radio for remote control functionality. For those who want a closer look, an image of the schematic is up on his blog.

The board is running MicroPython, which is a small Python implementation optimized for microcontrollers. Although [John]’s hardware platform looks great, he’s still getting started on his software. We look forward to seeing how his project develops, as his project is one of the smallest underwater vehicles we’ve seen.

[via Dangerous Prototypes]

Twitching Fish Plays Pokemon Underwater

August 9, 2014 by 12 Comments

fishypokemon

Over a matter of a few days, thousands of people were simultaneously watching this fish named [Grayson Hopper] float around a bowl of water as a webcam recorded its every move and translated the directions it took into a working gameplay of Pokemon Red. Each section of the tank was split into partitions, with each section acting like a button. So when the fish swam over a specific area, the main Pokemon character [Ash] was told where to go.

It was created during a hackNY hackathon within 24 hours when the fish started its journey in to the world of Pokemon. Already, a subreddit popped up documenting the adventure. Amazingly enough, [Grayson] chose Charmander as its starting Pokemon and has defeated its rival Squirtle.

This project was great for watching hours on end, especially at work, as the cute little fish went about its life unaware that it is becoming a popular internet star.

Check out the link above to stream the video. There is even a chat bar on the side, which allows anyone to jump into the fishy conversation. If the fish looks dead though, it’s probably just sleeping.

[Thanks for the tip Bailey!]

Also, Pokemon was reborn some vintage hardware recently which allows the player to game via the web. Check that out too!

Underwater GoPro Hero 2 Sees Clearly Again

May 11, 2014 by 8 Comments

go pro hack

GoPros are great action cameras for snagging photos and videos places where you can’t normally bring real camera gear. The problem is, even with the waterproof GoPro case for the Hero 2 — the underwater videos tend to be blurry and out of focus. Unsatisfied with his videos, [Mitchell] decided to make his own lens for the case!

The waterproof case has a removable concave lens, but for whatever reason it’s not very good underwater. Lucky for [Mitchell], it’s quite easily removed with 6 screws, revealing a nice thick gasket and the lens. Instead of trying to go fancy with some glass element from a broken camera, he’s just taken some 1/4″ plexiglass and cut out a piece to fit the case. It was a bit too thick for the original configuration, so he’s actually flipped the retaining ring upside down to space the lens away from the actual camera. A bunch of silicone later and the case is waterproof again with a new lens!

The resulting footage with the new lens looks awesome underwater — take a peek after the break.

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