Thomas Ferrara- SEII ROV Arm/Claw Daily Update

Hello Readers,

Since my last Daily Update I have done a lot of work. There have been several things due like the Brainstorming, alternate solutions, and selection/rejection report. I have also made a lot of contact, a great improvement from before, with my mentor, J.G.. As of now we are seriously getting into the planning details of the R.O.V. and how it will function as a whole. The hull, designed by K.I. is shaped like a trapazoidal prism. The electrical work will be run throughout the PVC piping. Also the propulsion with be placed in strategic spots (top, back, side) to provide ample power to steer and move the R.O.V.. As for myself, I have been trying to figure out the inner workings of using a syringe. I have done some browsing online to figure out price ranges and such and have decided that the syringe will have to be somewhat heavy duty to withstand the pressure put onto it. What also came to mind was the ability to continuously pick up the objects that are designated. As it stands the claw can only pick up one object at a time. With this in mind I tried to design a basket that will be able to catch the balls as they were picked up. A dilemma came up however. In order to be able to put the basket in a place to catch the ball or object once it will picked up it would have to be in the way of the claw and the object in the first place. To remedy this I decided that I could some how use the same technology as the claw to move the basket. Theoretically the basket if attached to some strings could be pulled backward in order to get it out of the way of the claw. The basket would have a trap door on it to allow it to have objects dropped in but not fall out. Once the object was picked up the basket would be pulled with the syringe and flipped backwards back into the R.O.V.'s hull. This design is all still in the planning stages.

Also between posts I have met with my mentor and discussed the actual physics of the design. We discussed the fact that the object would under a half an atmosphere of water (16 ft.). This might cause a problem. However, we conceptially figured out that because there is a platic tubing connecting the system that goes up througout the whole depth of the pool it will equalize itself causing no problems. Another factor that we discussed was the appliance of mechanical advatage in the two syringes. This could be done by having different sized syringes on either end. If a syringe with a larger volume/diameter (for the sake of the argument, 2 times larger)was on the operator's end then for each inch that the operator pulled it would move two inches on the claw end. This would allow for me distance in the claw end. On the other hand if the operator end had a smaller syringe (1/2 the size in diameter) than the force that the claw exerted would be multiplied. All of this should be kept in mind when continuing design.

That is all for now.

T.F.