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Subject: 
Re: Serenity, an autonomous NXT-based boat
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.robotics
Date: 
Thu, 13 Sep 2007 16:40:45 GMT
Viewed: 
5070 times
  
In lugnet.robotics, Brian Davis wrote:
In lugnet.robotics, Claude Baumann wrote:

...absolutely cool!

Thank you very much!

I would like to attract your attention to a rather old
Italian site (1999).
http://users.libero.it/riccardo.rocca/roboat.htm.
...At that time a pioneer work!

Actually, there still seem to be relatively few robotic water-craft around, to
my surprise. That is an excellent project, and I'd not seen it. I'm also really
glad I did not have to go the same route as he did (that's a heck of a magnetic
compass sensor, for instance). I'd like to add a GPS unit to Serenity (or the
next version - there's not a lot of "tonnage unallocated" with only two LEGO
Fireboat hulls), BT connected to the NXT. This would seem a fun way to do this,
and having an established positioning system would be vital.

I'm not sure I have that quite a big lake, however - most places that size
around here, on a good day my little Serenity would get run over by some
motorboat. Perhaps it needs a flag to alert others, but then there's more wind
drag... Fun problem.

I'm not sure how long the little underwater motors will last - I suspect, driven
by only 1 AA battery, these are likely the first things to "power down" on a
long trip. I could get around this by using the NXT motors (geared faster
probably), but then I need to make sure the NXT itself has enough power... and
the fact that the web page you directed me to uses an exteranl Pb-acid battery
is not reassuring :-).

Long-term, I may have to hack a regulated DC power supply for the NXT, and have
more batteries on board.

You know, what I like most with your project is that is such a refreshing, new
challenge, which - as you pointed out- surprisingly few people though of yet.
So, this might become a completely exciting NXT robot section. I think it was in
2005 that for the first time I saw RCX-driven underwater robots at the
International ROBOLAB Conference in Austin. All this inspires me to suggest this
kind of projects to my students this year. We have a beautiful lake here in
Luxembourg -artificial though-.

As to pure-LEGO. This might become difficult. Perhaps one could somehow use the
powerful all-terrain racer motor with battery pack. I'm not sure this is still
available.



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Serenity, an autonomous NXT-based boat
 
(...) If you're talking about the Outdoor Challenger (8675) ( (URL) ) then, yes, he has one of those... Steve (17 years ago, 13-Sep-07, to lugnet.robotics)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Serenity, an autonomous NXT-based boat
 
(...) Thank you very much! (...) Actually, there still seem to be relatively few robotic water-craft around, to my surprise. That is an excellent project, and I'd not seen it. I'm also really glad I did not have to go the same route as he did (...) (17 years ago, 13-Sep-07, to lugnet.robotics)

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