2. • Workshop sponsored by
COSEE Pacific
Partnership
– Summer 2011
Community College
Faculty Institute
• Held at OIMB
• Presented by MATE
My Adventures with ROVs
3. Why ROVs?
• Students learn to
collaborate
– Prepares them for upper-
level oceanography
courses
– AND LIFE!!
5. Why ROVs?
• It engages students of all majors!
– Hands-on experience involving a real
marine science activity
– Stimulates thought and imagination
• What it really takes to explore our oceans
• Introduces new career options
6. ROVs 101—building your
course
• Brief overview
– How I teach my classes
• Preparing students for their pool
experience
• Student lessons in ROVs
– What you will need and helpful
suggestions to ease your job
• Life after ROVs 101
– resources
—what could be next??
7. How I teach my classes…
• 3-4 sections of Intro to
Oceanography per semester
– On the road to 2 satellite
campuses
• Pool challenges
– DSC Aquatic Center
– YMCA for others
8. How I teach my classes…
• Pool challenges
– Always use the shallow end!
• If students fall in—tell them to
stand up
– YMCA for others
• Most charge no fee
• Available pool times may
dictate your course schedule
9. How I teach my classes…
• Hybrid class (no lab)
– limited to 35 students
– 1hr 20 minutes per
class period!!
• Review weekly material
– Class Reviews
important concepts
• Answering student
questions
• Followed by a weekly
exam of the material
(WE)
• ROV grade is a WE
10. How I teach my classes…
• I encourage you to teach
the ROV class after marine
bio sections
– Students understand
what it means to
capture a sessile
epibenthic or
nektobenthic organism
• Also helps if students have
already experienced
working together (mini-
labs)
11. How are they
graded?
• Team effort
– Divide into your
chosen team of 3
• Build an ROV
– Grade of C
• Successfully deploy and
maneuver your ROV in
the pool
– Grade of B
• Successfully retrieve a
‘biological’ from the
bottom
– Grade of A
This is the student sign-in sheet. I
check off their skills as they
complete them
13. What you will need…and some
helpful suggestions
• I use an extra large plastic tub to keep my
supplies of PVC pipe—makes it easy to
store and transport
– ½ inch pipe
• Comes in lengths of 10 feet
• Each about $1.80 at Home Depot (H.D.)
• To start out—get about 1 length per team
– After teaching this a few times I found I was
left with lots of PVC pipe SO—I cut much of
the pipe into 3 similar lengths
• Length you choose doesn’t matter as long as
e.g., all reds are the same length ( I think my
blues are about 10 inches, green 7 and red
about 5)
– I continue to provide a small amount of white
PVC so students can cut “specialty-length”
pieces
14. What you will need…and some
helpful suggestions
• When selecting PVC pipe, I
prefer the thicker wall—it
has a sturdier cut
15. What you will need…and some
helpful suggestions
• This is my tub of connectors
– Make sure they do NOT have
inner threads!!! You want to
smooth interior-walled
connectors
– Elbows: bag of 10 $1.97 at
H.D.
– Ts: bag of 10 $2.76 at H.D.
– Crosses, 3-D corners: only at
Lowes; sold individually about
$1.50 each! (I think :-/ )
16. What you will need…and some
helpful suggestions
• You will also need a pair of pliers
(below) so that you can pull out any
stubborn pipe pieces
• Gotta share!!
– PVC pipe cutters (~4 pair)
– Scissors to cut the pipe foam insulation (2
pair..I also recycle salvageable pieces of
foam to be reused next class)
– Duck tape—( 4-5 roles)
• Hint: National brand 40 yards = $2.68;
Scotch brand 30 yards = $4.49!!
• Plastic container box (top) —payload
– I offer my students plastic forks and chop
sticks/skewers
17. What you will need…and some
helpful suggestions
• Biologicals
– Nektobenthic (crabs)
• PVC pipe cap painted red
• Wood screws for eyes
• Drill 8 holes
• Twist pipe cleaners and thread
through holes to make the legs (2
pipe cleaners help to make the
legs more rigid)
– Sessile epibenthic (filter feeders)
• Elbow PVC to anchor
• Thread pipe cleaners for length
• I cut a wine cork in half, cover
with cloth and secure with pipe
cleaner.
– Cork will allow the critter to
float in the water column while
the pvc connector secures it to
the floor.
Be brave—create your own!!
19. The battery!!!
• I use a 12-volt battery commonly
used for commercial smoke
detectors
– Requires changing battery
connectors that you will get with
your ROV
• Advantage: students are free to
move to locations without my need
to baby sit a large shared battery
• They are heavy enough to remain
stable around the pool
– Have students move them back
from the edge
– Their weight will make transport
challenging
– Make sure during transport you
don’t stack them on top of each
other!!! Transport side-by-side. I
use a reusable shopping bag.
• Doesn’t matter which ‘slide tip’
they plug into whether + or – side
• Wont shock if they get wet
– It’s rechargeable
20. • Lessons in ROVs
– I review the following PowerPoint
slideshow during the week prior to their
pool experience…
• How much do you tell them as
far as how to build/deploy?
– Depends on time and desired degree of
challenge (the less you tell them the
greater time and challenge)
---AND---
– How much fun YOU want to
have watching that
challenge!!
Preparing students for their pool experience
WARNING: most students
don’t have a clue what they
are getting into—don’t be
concerned about their
intimidation!!
21. • What is an ROV?
– Remotely Operated Vehicle—an underwater robot
• Remote: the pilot is not in the vehicle
• Operated: the vehicle is controlled by a person
• Vehicle: it is a self-contained, integrated system
ROVs
ROVs
22. All shapes and sizes
• ROVs come in many shapes and all sizes
– Small observation vehicles may only have a
camera and be 30 to 40 cm long
– Large work vehicles can be the size of a house or
semi-truck and have complex tools
– Lots of vehicles in between
23. Other types of underwater robots
• Autonomous underwater
Vehicles (no cables)
• Seagliders
• Buoys
• Wave gliders
• Drifters
24. ROVs are used in a variety of fields…
• Scientific research
• Underwater archaeology
• Oil & gas drilling support
• Reconnaissance
• Homeland Security
• CSI
• Telecommunications
• Spying???
BP spill
25. ROVs are designed with a
mission in mind
• Rescue a disabled ROV trapped inside Titanic
• Cap an oil well
• Install instruments for an ocean observatory
• Collect organisms from under the polar ice cap
• Catalog data from a deep-sea hydrothermal vent
• Rescue trapped submariners
• Catalog diversity of a national marine sanctuary
How to meet
the challenges
of deep-ocean
exploration
On this slide I like to
use the pics and
point out the
challenges that
collaboration
scientists and
engineers must
address when
deciding how to
accomplish the
task…e.g., what is
needed to sample
soft tissue vs lava
pillows?
27. Your mission:
Design and build an ROV that can…
• Maneuver in a
pool
• Descend to the
bottom
• Retrieve
– ‘Biologicals’
• Have fun!
28. ROV Anatomy: Some Terminology
• Structure (frame)—what keeps it all together
• Flotation—what allows it to float
• Ballast—what helps it to sink
• Power—what supplies the energy for the vehicle
• Propulsion—devices (motors & propellers) that
transform electrical energy into motion
• Control—directing the vehicle—switches, joysticks
• Tools (payload)—manipulators, sampling devices (what
you need to complete the task at hand)
• Navigation and sensors —cameras, lights, sonar
29. Our ROV Construction
• Frame
– PVC pipe
• Propulsion system
– Bilge Pump Motors
• Buoyancy & Ballast
– Foam insulation and
water
• Control and Power
system
– 12-volt battery and switch
box
MATE - Marine Advanced Technology Education :: AngelFish Kit
Note: the propeller with the ‘L’ must
be used as the left motor on the ROV.
Also, the link at the top is for you!!
30. ROV-in-a-bag
• Payload: chopsticks and forks…
and anything you like!
I like to encourage my students to bring payload from home! The
teams seen below used cake servers (left) and a beach toy (right)
31. Ten guidelines to designing your ROV
1. Water pressure is always
there (you want it to fill with water!)
2. A structure keeps it all
together
3. Bigger isn’t necessarily better
(you want the motors to be powerful enough
for lift)
32. Ten guidelines to designing your ROV
4. An ROV should float before
it is ballasted (the ROV should float
just below the surface—let them figure out
how much foam)
5. The weight always ends up
below the floats (Foam on top! If it
is placed on the bottom, the ROV will likely
float too high in the water and inhibit motors
like the one in the pic to the right)
33. Ten guidelines to designing your ROV
6. Moving ballast weights tips the
ROV
7. An ROV must be able to move
8. An ROV needs a controllable
power source
9. It is important to navigate the
ROV
34. Ten guidelines to designing your ROV
10. Motor placement is important
• What’s wrong with this ROV?
• If foam is placed on the top cross bars, the
motors will be out of the water
• If this ROV is turned upside down, the
motors will be scraping the bottom.
Also…where would one place the payload?
• Another note—for best forward motion,
propellers should be placed in same, straight
forward direction (i.e., not facing each
other)
• For best up/down motion, one motor should
be placed up/down direction
35. More on motor placement
• What directions do you want to go?
– Up/down
– Forward/backwards
– Left/right or turning
• How can three motors achieve this goal?
36. • THREE DON’TS I TELL
MY STUDENTS!!!!
1. DO NOT TEST YOUR
MOTORS WHILE THEY
LAY ON THE
GROUND!
• IT EATS UP THE
PROPELLORS
37. THREE DON’TS I TELL MY
STUDENTS!!!!
2. DO NOT PULL YOUR ROV
OUT OF THE WATER BY THE
UNBILICAL CORD!
• IT PULLS OUT THE WIRES (I
instruct my students to tape
the umbilical cord to the
upper most portion of their
ROV to keep it controllable.
They are told that once the
ROV surfaces, grab and
remove it by the frame.
Also—note the piece of tape
on the pipe foam—this
keeps it from popping off
while underwater)
38. • THREE DON’TS I TELL
MY STUDENTS!!!!
3. DO NOT CUT THE
COLORED PVC PIPE
• YOU MAY CUT THE
WHITE PVC PIPE
39. The party’s
over…
now what?
Students are required
to dismantle their
ROVs and return all
supplies to the
appropriate container.
Tape is also removed
and disposed. I
recycle all that I can!
40. • Engage students in STEM and expose them
to science and technology careers
• Encourage students to develop and apply
technical, teamwork, and problem solving
skills
• Provide funds, materials, and technical
expertise to support student
learning provide industry with skilled
individuals who can fill workforce needs
MATE and LIFE AFTER ROVs101…
MATE created the ROV competitions
as a way to:
41. (I) SCOUT CLASS
(III) EXPLORER CLASS
(II) RANGER CLASS
Three levels of competition
with increasing technical
requirements. Fun for all!!
42. For more info on ROVs, MATE
and MATE competitions…
www.marinetech.org
LIFE AFTER ROVs101…
