Lots of Progress!

After some technical delays the Naval/Mechanical side of the MUN SailBOT team has hit the ground running. In the past month or so the team has laser cut wood for the hull model, assembled the mold, and built the deck. With the addition of the hull currently being built and the rudder under construction, our team is well on our way and picking up steam.

The pond is starting to thaw out and we are hoping to be able to do some sailing testing soon. Keep an eye out for our boat on the pond behind the engineering building near the end of May; we'll be the ones frantically paddling around in a blow up dinghy. If you're interested in giving us a hand with the project feel free to shoot us an email at munsailbot@gmail.com. As usual everyone is welcome!

Hull Mold Before Shaping

Hull Mold Mid Shaping

Activity Fair Tomorrow

It's the beginning of the school year and per usual we are doing some recruiting for our team! Tomorrow, September 20th, we will be having a booth open at the Marine Institute on Ridge Road from 12-2 in the main lobby. Come on down and learn more about our boat and what we do as a team. If you are unable to make it but are still interested in joining the MUN SailBOT team, feel free to contact us at munsailbot@gmail.com or come to one of our meetings as posted on our Facebook page. Everyone is welcome.

MUN SailBOT Team Presenting at the Engineering Open House

Competition Update

MUN SailBOT team arrived in Kingston on Saturday evening. The next day we worked on getting the systems ready for the competition on Monday. With new electronics from QKits electronics in Kingston the boat was ready to do some testing on the water.

The Team arriving at Kingston Yacht Club for the First Time

On the first day of the competition sailing was challenging since the wind was at an impressive speed of 25 knots! The events were called off until 7 pm in hopes that the wind would die down, but not before we bent the boom mount. The rest of the day was spent getting the boat ready for the heavy winds. When we finally hit the water at 7 pm, it was still very windy and we lost our long antenna out on the water. While the boat was competing it was rocking a lot from the high winds and waves, and we took on some water. We managed to get the boat back into sailing condition, sealing the leaks until late into the night.

Jaylan with Sea++ on the dock

On Tuesday we had a bit more luck, with the wind not blowing quite as strong. We competed in the station keeping event, where Sea++ had to stay within a boundary box for five minutes autonomously and then leave as close to the five minute mark as possible. We improved on our results from the day before, getting 8.1/10 points for our run right after competition was postponed due to rain. 

All in all there have been some challenges so far, but we are adapting to them and getting the boat back on the water quickly.

Video of the Station Keeping Challenge

Last Day Until Competition

Tonight the team is leaving for Kingston, Ontario! We finished painting the boat this morning and are preparing for our flights. We tested for the last time yesterday and the autonomous code is working very well. As you can see in the video below it was working almost a little too well and we were having some trouble keeping up with Sea++ on the water.

The Team Chasing after Sea++ During Testing

First Day of Testing

On Sunday the team was able to test our boat Sea++ for the first time this year! The competition is approaching fast and we are in our last stages of preparing. A huge thank-you to United Sail Works for getting our sail done so quickly, we wouldn't have been able to test without it. We'll be back out testing soon, if you want to come watch follow our facebook page for updates or contact us at munsailbot@gmail.com.

Jeffrey and Evgueni in the Chase Boat following Sea++

Big Plans Coming up for the New Year

It’s the beginning of another year for MUN SailBOT and construction is well on the way. With new electronics from the full overhaul from last year, the fall semester was dedicated to mapping the new system as well as planning the improvements to be made. On the coding front, the team has been very busy updating and creating code for the new competition this June. With the addition of a machine vision event, the team has been challenged to create a large section of brand new code that with the use of a camera should help us sail to a buoy in a large body of water. The Mechanical/Naval team has started overhauling the hull, building the rudders, and designing a new rigging, sail and mounting system for the new electronics. It will be a busy year for MUN SailBOT with major overhauls happening in every sector! We are hoping to repeat our successes from last year and hold onto the International Robotics Sailing Regatta title. If you are interested in working with the team, or supporting us with a donation, the MUN SailBOT Team can be contacted at munsailbot@gmail.com.

MUN SailBOT Team at the 2015 IRSR Award Ceremony

The Petunia II making the winning lap in the long distance race:

MUN SailBOT would like to thank Spartan Industrial Marine for offering a discount on some great fiber glassing supplies. Every bit of support helps our team build amazing boats.

The Last Few Weeks

We are now approaching the competition date fast and our boat is almost ready to sail. with a new hull, a new electrical layout, and a beautiful new wind sensor, we hope to be a worthy opponent this year.

Construction Phase

A new semester has come which marks our transition from the design phase to the construction phase of our new boat. During the last Fall semester, the design team conjured up a new hull, rudder, bulb and sailplan as well as redesigning the electrical system. Druring this Winter semester, these components of our boat will be constructed and then put to the test (when the ice melts).

The construction of the hull is already underway with the mold almost complete. The bulb is in its beginning stages of construction and parts for the new rudder are being cut and sanded to size.

A New Hull

The new hull for the 2015 IRSR competition is underway and looking great thus far. This hull form has undergone a few revisions and is currently in the stages of analysis using software such as GHS and hopefully ANSYS CFX. Some upcoming changes to the hull form include:

• Adding more buoyancy to the bow to reduce trim when running
• Attempt to ensure that her natural pitch frequency is nowhere near that of the expected wave frequency, since this was a problem that was seen with Trixie.
• any changes resulting from the construction design, such as implementing a crash bow similar to Trixie's bow.

It is expected that within the next couple weeks, the construction of the mold will begin.

Aside from a new hull, the team is also redesigning a new bulb, redesigning the sail plan, a new rudder and a complete overhaul of the electronics system.

Progress on Programming!

Along with a new semester, a new boat, and a new team, some new code is needed. Nick Shiell, and Zachary Faulkner are stepping up to the plate and writing it. The biggest changes this year will be the switch to RoS (Robot Operating System), changing the navigation method, and working with an updated wind sensor design. All of which is rather exciting!

While the switch to RoS will have a decent amount of overhead, our programmers believe the pay off will be well worth it, as RoS is much more suited to working with the SailBot, alongside all the coming updates in the electronics and the software.

Another Year, Another Boat

The beginning of a new academic year for the MUN SailBOT team has come and we are once again beginning the design and fabrication of a new boat. Our team has also been given the honor of hosting the 2015 IRSR in our own city, St. John's, NL.

The next couple of semesters will require a lot of time and hard work to complete these tasks, but with the addition of our new team members, the lessons learned through the design of Trixie and her performance at the 2014 IRSR and a little help from our sponsors, this years competition will be a success.

Thank-You Husky Energy

MUN SailBOT would like to thank Husky Energy for their generous sponsorship of $1000. The money will be used to cover travel costs for the competition. This sponsorship has been a great help for the SailBOT team.

Trixie's Success

This years competition has now come to an end with MUN SailBOT placing 3rd (a close 2nd) of 5. Trixie performed exceptionally well this year and we were all pleased with her success. Many lessons were learned during the event and new ideas for the design of our next vessel are forming.

A special thanks to our sponsors for making this success possible.

Its The Final Countdown

Well a lot has happened within the last month or two and its been quite a successful time. After a hard 10 months of work, the beautiful Trixie has now been completely designed and built and as of a couple of weeks ago, the testing stage has begun. But now the time has come to stand tall and really show off Trixie's skills during the annual SailBOT competition which is held in San Francisco this year. Very soon, we (6 team members) will be leaving together with Trixie in our pocket and hope in our hearts!

Little Dragon Gets Smart

Over the past few months Zhi Li has been working on a new test vessel.  Something small and easy to deploy, while at the same time being capable of mimicking the 2-m vessel Trixie such that any code developed can be transferred over to the larger vessel. In essence, a navigation code development platform.

The boat picture below is the Little Dragon, a 1-m RC vessel which has been modified to work with the Xbee radio system, GPS and wind sensor used on Trixie.  The two sensors  relay information to a BeagleBone nested inside the vessel.  The Beaglebone then relays this information through the Xbee back to the shore based computer. 

The beauty of this system is in how the autonomous code is integrated.  Instead of being downloaded onto the Beaglebone, the code is run wirelessly from the shore computer.  For testing and trouble shooting navigation code, this allows changes to be made rapidly without having to bring Little Dragon back to the dock.

Little Dragon should be a great asset for this year, as well as future generations of the team, having successfully allowed the build of the vessel to be carried out independent of the testing of navigation code.

Below is the code that runs the communication and control system.  Open to anyone and every one to use. 

Code Link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bwp9qS8JICuZMENNNGVScUptcGM/edit?usp=sharing

To San Fran, with the wind at our back!

Progress Report: our hull is well underway! We started work on it back in March during our prototyping phase. The photo below shows a half-scale version, constructed with cardboard stations and household insulation. The half model was built to familiarize the team with an entire cycle of the build process. The prototype allowed us to test ideas and construction methods without having to put in large amounts of time or money (Neither of which we have large amounts of). Some novel ideas were tested to great success; such as using saran wrap as a mould release agent.  The half-scale model also identified the number of stations that are needed to fully define the hull form, and gave us an idea of how much work is required to create a fair final product.  The team also discovered the tricks and problems of working with foam; mainly with regards to how soft it is.

Half-scale prototype – wrapped in saran wrap and ready for glass.

Following on the success of the half-scale, the team began building the full-scale version. For this, we started with laser-cut 1/8" birch stations, profile and deck. The profile was added due to the size of the hull, the thinking being that another defined line would help with the sanding process. Below, Adam Day can be seen putting the "skeleton" of the plug together. The deck had some warp in it and had to be held down with drafting ducks from the senior naval arch. class room (better use for them than door stops...) while the putty that was used to assemble the skeleton cured.

Adam Day and the "skeleton".

Skeleton puttied, loaded down with ducks.

Once cured, the next step was filling the skeleton with foam. This took much longer than expected, more time than was needed on the half-scale model. Each piece had to be cut square and some sections had to be custom fitted to length. The final result looks a little rough around the edges but with some sanding should shape up nicely.

Adam Day and Martha Hermann sizing up the foam.

  

The team is aiming for an early launch, so expect more posts to follow as the hull emerges from the foam! 

Now... We Sand!

** All photos taken by Emma Williams**

A Thank You to Trapper John's!

MUN SailBOT would like to thank Trapper John's for hosting us for our fundraiser on Saturday, March 1, 2014. In total we made over $250 at the event and a good time was had by all. The money will be going towards building our new boat as well as the competition costs.

A New Member of the Family

As of early last week, the MUN SailBOT team has gained a new ally in their quest to solve science once and for all. 

Ladies and gentlemen... Petunia the Pump!

Petunia is a classy pump come up to help all the way from California, USA. She has thus far been a great aid with the development of some components for the new vessel Trixie. These components include a new rudder, a hatch prototype and a test section of the keel. There are sure to be many other items that Petunia will generously lend a hand with - and we look forward to each one!

Left to Right: Petunia and Liam Johnston