Hailing from the High Arctic...

MUN SailBOT would like to thank our newest sponsor, TSL Contractors LTD. for sponsoring us at the Top Sail Level! TSL Contractors LTD.  is a construction company based out of Whitehorse, Yukon with project experience as far as the South Pole. The sponsorship provided will assist in this year's travel costs and the costs associated with building the next robotic vessel. 

No More Swimming!!

Last year one of the items identified regarding development was the difficulty associated with testing. Both access to a suitable test site (a pond) and a proper chase were both lacking.  To remedy one aspect of this problem we have built a chase boat.  The photo above is of Liam Johnston and Carolyn O'Rourke (along with Tyler "Gordo" Gordon, photo credit) glassing the new vessel, Miss Smith.  The Miss Smith will be used primarily on Long Pond and should improved both our ability to monitor the Arctica's performance and reduce deployment of emergency swimmers.  More photos to follow as the Miss Smith conducts her pond trials.

New Rudder

Austin Young and Adam Day (pictured above) presented the team with a gift last Wednesday - a new rudder. The rudder was designed in SolidWorks and then built using MUN's rapid-prototyping machine.  MUN SailBot hopes to do more work like this to reduce the time between idea inception and the testing of the new components.  Then next step for the rudder is to install it on the Arctica prior to her pond-trials this spring.

Back in Action

The team is back in Action.....

Team Members listed from right to left from Wednesday Meeting :

Peter Campbell, Adam Day, Austin Young, Taylor Gordon, Emily Adey, Liam Johnson, Mingxi Zhou, Adam Swan, Justin Royce, Carolyn O'Rourke, Ben Pallard, Ed Moakler, Matt Davidson, Zhi Li, Daniel Cook

Note: Jordan Smith is missing from picture as he took the photo

Special Thanks to ...

We thank Rutter INC. for sponsoring us at the Top Gallant Level! We are proud to be sponsored by such a leader in marine electronics and communication systems. Their in-kind donations will be an asset to the team in the build of the next boat.

Special Thanks to Dr. Janna Rosales

Above: Dr. Rosales speaking at Ted Talk

"Special Thanks to Dr. Janna Rosales for allocating time from her tightly scheduled engineering ethics class to allow the MUN Sailbot Team to speak about recruitment on Wednesday and Thursday of this week."  

Like this...But smaller!!

The design for the next generation of MUN SailBOT racing machine is underway.  Though the team is spread across the country, we are laying the groundwork for the new vessel. The vessel will be a trimaran with a articulating wing sail designed to go really, really fast! We will be working with Rhino for the 3-D  modeling, CAD for the general arrangement and GHS or Maxsurf for the hydrostatics.  Over the next few months we will spiral in on a final design, and -with our fingers crossed - pull the carbon fiber hull next semester. More design posts to come!