Weekly Updates

9/6/2019

We formed the Delphinus USV Team and began working on our goal of circumnavigating the world's oceans autonomously. We worked on developing a team style guide and project requirements documents.

9/13/2019

We created and finalized our requirements document and began developing conceptual designs.

9/20/2019

We completed individual conceptual designs, created conceptual design documents and presentations. Also, we began discussions on the team conceptual design.

9/27/2019

We used decision matrices to narrow down our ideas to one group concept design. We researched several topics to help us determine our design.

10/4/2019

We have presented our concept design and have been working together to produce the specifications of our system.

10/11/2019

We are continuing to define our specifications, working together to complete our document event through our Mid-Semester Break.

10/18/19

While facing some difficulties, our team has completed and presented the specifications for our design.

10/25/19

Our team has continued to work on finalizing parts of our design. This is the first week of the preliminary design phase.

11/1/19

This week, our team continued work on our preliminary design. We continued fundraising efforts with a proposal to Dean Madler for grant money and to Renogy in hopes of having solar panels and charge controller donated. We are nearing completion on the motor thrust testing apparatus. Furthermore, we developed a approximate mission path including time estimates.

11/8/19

This week we have sent more proposals for additional funding and are performing structural analysis tests on our design. Furthermore, we are updating our documents and a few of our parts are on their way. We finished the motor thrust testing apparatus. However, the testing apparatus had significantly poor vibrational stability along the motor shaft, so the apparatus was discontinued for more urgent problems. We have also switched from a catamaran hull to a monohull.

11/15/19

This week we continued to work on ANSYS simulations and Matlab codes. We wrote more code for the Raspberry Pi to interface with other components. Web cams arrived. We also received approval from the Embry-Riddle crowdfunding organization to set up our campaign. We continued updating documents as well.

11/22/19

This week we continued to work on ANSYS simulations. Work with Matlab codes continued to improve the dynamics and control simulation. We began to test the code with components. Motor drivers, GPS, And IMU arrived. We also received approval from the Dean for grant money. We also worked on the draft of the preliminary design document

11/29/19

Our team is on a break to enjoy the Thanksgiving Weekend. However, work must go on. Structural analysis was started using ANSYS. This was followed up with solid mechanics analysis of composite beams.

12/6/19

Our team presented our preliminary design to a panel of professors. The paper is complete. During the break will be in contact with several companies to try to get sponsorship. we will be back for detail design on January 8,2020.

1/10/20

This week our team has returned for the detail semester. Using the feedback from our preliminary design presentation and advise from Dr. Isenberg, we are working on fine tuning our design and components so that we can order what we need and begin construction.

1/17/20

Fine tuning our design continues and it is also being prepped for when we start construction. Some electronic parts have been ordered so that we can begin configuring and testing our software.

1/24/20

Our team has finally ordered our construction materials. This weekend we will work to prepare the foam to begin the construction as soon as possible. We also have everything we need to run our Raspberry Pis and are working to create our software code.

1/31/20

This weeks we picked up our foam for boat construction and have begun prepping it to send to the foam cutter lab. We've come across some complications with our Raspberry Pis but we are working to resolve those issues.

2/7/20

This week our team is making great progress! We are almost finished prepping our foam and have started sending the pieces to the foam cutter lab. We have also received our battery and proper cables and our power system works gloriously so far.

2/14/20

Happy Valentine's Day! This week our team has met some slight complications with our laser cut foam, as the pieces aren't as lined up as we hoped they would be so we are starting some additional sanding to fix this issue. We are also working on our electrical system by soldering our in-line fuses to our solar panel. A design for a hat on our Raspberry Pi 3B+ is in progress.

2/21/20

This week we continued to shape the hull. The hull now has very few sharp edges which should make fiber glassing easier. Also the hull is now the correct shape on the outside. We also worked on the object detection programming on the Raspberry Pi using C++ .

2/28/20

This week we received the epoxy, fiberglass, and trolling motor for the vessel. The vessel has been completely sanded and some of the small holes in foam have been filled with epoxy. The transom has been cut and mounted using epoxy. The mounting hardware for the vessel has been cut and fitted.

3/6/20

This week we completed 2 layers of fiberglass on the inside of the hull as well as one layer on the outside. The hull was also prepped for the final layers. The sonar was tested and the PCB was ordered.

3/20/20

The corona virus has caused the the entire university to continue classes online. Fortunately, none our team members are sick. Unfortunately, we will not get to finish manufacturing our project. We will work on test document and focus on the planning of tests and the way that the vessel will be tested in the future.

3/27/20

Online classes continue, and officially will continue thru the end of the semester. Our team continues to work on the test document. We are going to start looking into writing an IEEE Oceans paper for our final report.

4/3/20

We have been working on the test document. Also, we decided to do an IEEE OCEANS paper for our final report. We are conducting a literature review for our OCEANS paper as well. COVID-19 has struck over 200,000 Americans, we are all very lucky to be healthy in our group. If there is anyone still looking at this, I hope you and your family are healthy too.

4/10/20

This week we have finished the test document. We also have continued the literature review for the IEEE OCEANS paper. We will start preparing for the final presentation this weekend. COVID-19 has struck over 400,000 Americans. Hopefully we are getting close to the peak, so that we can stop living in fear soon. Again, if there is anyone still reading this, I hope you and your family are safe during these unusual and dangerous times.