{"id":22704,"date":"2014-09-01T02:00:37","date_gmt":"2014-09-01T06:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=22704"},"modified":"2014-08-31T16:08:32","modified_gmt":"2014-08-31T20:08:32","slug":"fau-students-building-robot-boat-to-conquer-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2014\/09\/01\/fau-students-building-robot-boat-to-conquer-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"FAU Students Building Robot Boat To Conquer The World"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ivan<\/a>

John O'Connor \/ StateImpact Florida<\/p>

Ivan Bertaska, Anderson Lebadd and Edoardo Sarda run their robotic boat through the motions on the Intracoastal Waterway near Dania Beach.<\/p><\/div>\n

On the Intracoastal Waterway near Dania Beach, Ivan Bertaska was getting ready to captain his vessel.<\/p>\n

Bertaska wants to check the boat\u2019s capabilities by having it speed up and slow down as it carves a wavy wake across the Intracoastal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe wave pattern actually gives me a good range of velocities,” he said, “so at first we go about two knots and then we get to the top corners where we\u2019re making sharp turns we\u2019re going about one knot. So I get a good operational range of the vehicle.<\/p>\n

“We get a lot of funny looks from boaters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Funny looks because Bertaska and a team of other engineers are building a boat that can drive itself.<\/p>\n\n

The team is from Florida Atlantic University<\/a> and Villanova University in Philadelphia. It includes FAU student Edoardo Sarda and Villanova student Anderson Lebbad. They\u2019re traveling to Singapore in October for the Maritime RobotX Challenge<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And they\u2019re one of just three teams from the United States chosen for the competition.<\/p>\n


\nThe boat will have to use sonar, light and color sensors to perform a series of tasks, including navigating an obstacle course.<\/p>\n

This is the first time this competition is happening.<\/p>\n

Teams are given the platform of a boat<\/a> and they must design scanners and sensors that allow the boat to perform five tasks on its own with no humans on board<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The first is a short, slalom like sprint.<\/p>\n

Next, the boat must find its way from a start gate to an end gate while navigating an obstacle course in between.<\/p>\n

Then the boat must identify one of several marina slips identified by a shape, find it and then stop in marina slip.<\/p>\n

\"Marine<\/a>

John O'Connor \/ StateImpact Florida<\/p>

Marine Advanced Research donated a WAM-V unmanned boat platform to each team. From there, they have to design sensors and programming to perform five tasks.<\/p><\/div>\n

Another task requires the boat to find a light tower with a a different colored light pattern on three sides. The boat must report the sequence and frequency of flashing light pattern.<\/p>\n

Finally, the boat must locate and report which underwater object is sending out a signal.<\/p>\n

Bertaska and Sarda feel good that the boat will be up to the challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve made significant progress,” Bertaska said. “I think that we\u2019re going to be really, really prepared for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s lots of work left to do, but there\u2019s also time,” Sarda said. “So, we\u2019re optimistic\u201d<\/p>\n

They\u2019re optimistic, but unfortunately there\u2019s no more time on this recent day \u2013 a storm is coming.
\nBertaska is worried about my recording equipment getting drenched.<\/p>\n

\u201cUh guys it\u2019s raining down there so we should probably think about heading in,” he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, we\u2019re going to get wet,\u201d Sarda responded.<\/p>\n

Back to the workshop, the rest of the team is testing the scanning laser and fine-tuning the computer programs that make the on-board decisions.<\/p>\n

Karl von Ellenrieder is supervising the team. \u00a0He\u2019s a Florida Atlantic University ocean and mechanical engineering professor<\/a>. He said the students have a month to pull everything together before they head to Singapore.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe basically have to put it on the water and test it like crazy to make sure that everything works like we expect it to,” he said<\/p>\n

Von Ellenrieder said they\u2019ll have to beat teams from all over the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a truly international competition,” he said. “South Korea and Japan are powerhouses in robotics and so it\u2019s going to be very challenging to compete against them I think.\u201d<\/p>\n

Von Ellenrieder said competitions like RobotX give his students a real world education.<\/p>\n

\u201cMechanical engineers end up learning a little bit about electronics, a little bit about computer science. Ocean engineers the same,” he said. “They get a really nice, interdisciplinary, kind of, experience that really broadens their background.\u201d<\/p>\n

They\u2019re also getting a lesson in economics. The team won a $25,000 dollar grant from the U.S. Office of Naval Research. But they still need to raise about $50,000 more to pay for travel costs for the entire team.<\/p>\n

The team has set up a website to raise money<\/a> for the trip and update their progress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the Intracoastal Waterway near Dania Beach, Ivan Bertaska was getting ready to captain his vessel. Bertaska wants to check the boat\u2019s capabilities by having it speed up and slow down as it carves a wavy wake across the Intracoastal. \u201cThe wave pattern actually gives me a good range of velocities,” he said, “so at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":22706,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[1150,1082],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22704"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22704"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22710,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22704\/revisions\/22710"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}