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Our team has researched problems about our ocean, and we have found something quite peculiar...
The Coral Critters have found out that every two days, scientists have to get a boat, go out, get the robot manually, and bring it back to charge for hours before bringing the robot back to the same place they got it! This method slows down progression and costs 19,000 dollars every single time the scientists go out, costing 133,000 dollars every two weeks.
BUT, we have racked our brains for a few days and found a simple solution: scientists can put a buoy in the ocean. This means that when the robot is low on power, it can surface, connect to satellites, and receive instructions on how to get back to the buoy. They can enter the buoy and charge wirelessly! This means that they can't damage any exposed pieces!
The coral critters worked on this idea with the help of professor John Klinck from Old Dominion University. We also did more research, and through these different sources, we found out that while there are several ideas on how to solve this, none are strongly implemented. Because of this, our team started working to create a prototype.
We started with this: (insert photos of different prototypes, and in between each one, say something like, "and this is our next one." You can ask innovation team for help with more info.)
While it was a functional model, it wasn't very realistic; the dock wasn't a full box, a more realistic and effective shape. So for the next competition, we made this:
This was already much better. It was an actual box, and it was a cleaner and nicer build overall. However, there was another part: It had multiple chargers. This was a major upgrade, and one that would undoubtedly be on the final model. Even going from one to two chargers effectively doubles the charging, and we quadrupled it. But even though this was much better, we want to go beyond this. So we're using this:
This is the CHASING Dory, a recreational drone that we plan to retrofit with chargers to become a real model. Once we do that, we can build our dock, and make the drone a true and fully fledged model!
While our project is yet to be entirely finished, we have made great progress. Our team has visited Dominion Energy's aviation drone department in April, and we have gotten some pretty good ideas from that trip to the department.
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