Engineering Projects/Model boat/Howard Community College/Spring2012/p1501-ZlM

Problem Statement
Make a model boat with an autopilot and camera that can chase turtles or shoot BB's at other boats in a competition

Team Members

 * Lemuel Sun
 * Zechariah Bennett
 * Michael Nugent

Summary
The team spent the last four weeks In an attempt to create a remote control boat that would be mounted with a remote control turret. In order to accomplish this, a boat needed to be fabricated, and then an arduino would need to be connected to a separate remote control which would control the turret. Many designs were created and sketched in the team members notebooks, and multiple decision matrices were created to facilitate the choosing of a specific design. Of all the designs propositioned, the electrical gearbox was chosen. This would allow For drastically faster firing than a single shot mechanism. The team also decided that should purchasing a remote control boat be I feasible, the boat should be constructed using styrofoam, in the style of a dual pontoon.

Story
When we first set out to construct a remote control boat with a remote control turret, we had to realize as a team that specific parts of the project needed to be completed prior to other parts. For example, in order to begin drawing up designs for a turret, we needed to procure a boat. This would give us the maximum dimensions and mass that our turret could be. Then, designing the turret could begin. After creating decision matrices, we found that the electrical gearbox taken from an airs off gun would be the optimal solution, seeing as it has the highest power, fastest firing speed, and greatest ease of installation. Next, we needed to hack a tv remote to connect it to an arduino so that it might be used to control the turret. In order to accomplish this, we attached an ATI Wonder remote to a Beagle, which intercepts and translates he signals that the remote sends out. It was here that we met our first true obstacle. None of the members of our team have had any prior experience with programming, and this certainly was not a beginners task. We succeeded in intercepting the signals, but we had no clue as of how to program the arduino to respond to the signals. Then, we ran into problems with the remote software as well as the arduino software. It seemed to work sporadically, actually functioning on a seemingly random basis. It would work one day, and then refuse to even open the next. We decided then to start a more me handicap approach to creating our project. Using nails of a uniform mass, we tested the buoyancy of common styrofoam. We found that approximately 6.9 grams of styrofoam can float 1 kilogram of mass, which is a very desirable ratio.

Decision List
Multiple decision matrices were created (Higher scores are more desirable)

Material List
1. List materials used, quantity, size, cost. 2. Describe what needs to be purchased in the future to continue working on this project.

Table wont stay in section, see bottom of page.

Software List
Arduino control software installed to laptop. This program allows for the programming of the arduino board, which then will allow the control of devices attached to the arduino board such as motors or even the remote control board.

Time
26.05 hours

Tutorials
All projects create new tutorials of technical details future participants are going to want to know. They are going to be separate pages that are linked to here.

Installing the Arduino Software

Arduino Motor Programming Tutorial

Next Steps
List specific details, advice, describe the current problems that the next team faces associated with the project here.

1. Programming: The programming was a problem for our group. None of us were any good at programming and even when we tried to learn we didn't fair so well. Zach and Mike made some progress playing with the remote control hacker but that did not get far. This, however, is a fairly simple fix and was most likely just a fault on our own part.

2. Safety/Legality issues: Part of the boats original design was to include an airsoft electric gun (AEG) weapon system on the boat and have it fire by remote control. The problems with that are that ordering the gun would bring up legal issues and bringing any active pieces to school would also be an issue. The reason is that technically, airsoft guns are designed to be incredibly realistic yet only fire small 6mm plastic pellets. Still, this brings up safety issues and would need to be proved to the school that airsoft guns are not dangerous and that following basic safety precautions and common sense can prevent any sort of real injury or problems. This would need to be summed up in a safety report and submitted to Foerster to submit to the college.

Really our biggest problem was getting our hands on the equipment. The model boat that we ordered did not arrive until the last week of the project and the parts that we would need to order for the weapons system were found to be a threat to the school and would need to be cleared first. We have designs and tutorials that we could follow but until we had parts it was basically obsolete.