A day of many trips

You had a crazy day today. You woke up around 0730 and met Travis at the Hardware store at 0800. You didn't find what you were hoping for and so headed to Baxter.

There you finished cutting out the main thruster cone and also got a bunch of wiring done. You then took a bunch of parts that you need to fit together over the next couple days. From there you went to senior projects (and arrived at 1300 in time to see only one – Emma and Fiona's about co-operatives).

At FHS you met Liam and Josef. Josef went to Travis's and you and Liam headed back to your house. You then ate lunch and worked on the float for a while, getting half of it together in a nice fashion after a few small glitches. You then brought it to Travis's with some other stuff and all worked on a bunch of different things from soldering, to spray painting, to sanding. Around that time you also ate diner.

You then got ready for Academic awards and went to that long ordeal from 1830 to 2000. You then returned to your house to change and get some parts that your Dad had brought home from work. You then brought all the stuff to Travis's and resumed work. Turns out that some metal had to be bent and there is no good vice at Travis's house so you and Liam then went back to your house for half an hour (from 2230 to 2300).

Upon returning to Travis's you got a couple more things done for tomorrow including a couple more layers of spray-paint and a quick CAD model.

Main thruster and epoxy

You woke up around 0745 today and met up with the rest of the crew at school around 0900. You and Liam then headed directly to Baxter while Josef and Travis took care of tuxedos and electronic parts.

At Baxter you and Liam set up the router to cut out the mount for the main thruster. You the finished up some CAD models and wrote a little bit more of your essay. When Travis and Josef arrived you all split up and worked on a variety of things including readying the router, redoing the G-code for a new bit and putting together the last of the through hulls.

Liam then left and you and him edited each others papers. Following that you and Travis finished setting up the router, and after a little problem solving got the code to run. It still isn't quite done but should be soon. While it was cutting the three of you ordered pizza from Portland Pie Company and then Travis picked it up.

While that was happening you also had the 3D printer going to make a servo bracket and the last pot for a ESC controller. After finishing up around 1600 you headed back to Freeport. While Travis swam you ate dinner and counted up the number of man hours we have spend in the last two weeks as well as the total number of bytes that we have used in this project.

At 1900 you headed to Travis's house to work on a couple of things. First you epoxied the final ESC. You then spent a while trying to get the cameras to look nice before you epoxied them into their cases as well. Lastly you helped Travis with a voltage step down that he had been working on for most of the evening. When all was said and done you returned home at 2350 to write this post…

Frisbee states and busy work

Today you woke up around 0830 and then headed to the high school at 0915 to bring people to the Cumberland Fairgrounds for the frisbee states tournament.

Freeport Ultimate (FU) had a good first game – you won by universe point after hard cap. You then lost to Yarmouth, South Portland, and Falmouth A2. All four of the games were back to back so you played frisbee from about 1030 to 1645.

You got quite beat up from diving and sliding, with both hips having large scrapes as well as your right elbow, and you got a sunburn.

Upon returning home you ate, showered, and napped to regain energy. After recovering you wrote the first draft of your essay, created a rough draft of the presentation, and worked on a couple of Limbeck paraphernalia pieces in Photoshop.

Cameras and Prom (5/31)

You wrote this a day late as you got home fro Prom so late last night.

Before that though you worked at Travis's house from 0900 to 1400 on the project. You mostly worked with Liam and were trying to put together the camera housings and make the cameras fit inside. You cut slits in the boxes that needed it while Liam ground down the corners of the Pi-cameras so that they would fit. It turns out that you also had to cut away some of the box material so that the cameras could fit in the way they are supposed to.

After getting the cameras to fit you two worked on getting the pieces to mount together. You went to the hardware store and bought 6-32 threaded rod and nuts to make you own bolts (they didn't have bolts for some reason). Upon returning you sanded a couple of the pieces and cut the threaded rod so that it fit the pieces together as best as possible. You then tried to mount the nuts inside of a couple of the pieces so that they don't take up very much room. However, a blow dryer and a hot glue gun were not the necessary tools for the job and so we are going to have to wait until our next Baxter trip.

After returning to your house you cleaned your car, washed yourself, and got dressed for prom. You went to Emily Jennings' before and after party and while there you also saw loads of cameras…

You had fun and accompanied Emma to Emelia von Satlza's graduation party for a short time as well. Finally you went to bed around 0100 thinking about the upcoming frisbee states.

Collaborative CAD

You woke up late today (0845) as you forgot to set an alarm. You then quickly rushed over to Travis's house to carpool down to Baxter. On the way you bough a couple resistors and a voltage step-down so that you could run the BeagleBone off the batteries. You also stopped at a hardware store to buy 6-32 bolts, but they didn't have any.

At Baxter you and Liam went and helped Mr. Amory figure out how to cut out the main thruster container. This took a couple hours, from about 0945 to 1200, as the MasterCam software for SolidWorks was acting up a little bit.

After that you went to lunch with Mr. Amory, Josef, Liam, and Travis at Portland Pie Company. Upon returning you quickly finished the main thruster CAD model.

You then went down stairs and helped Travis to glue the small thrusters together in to the main body of the submersible. The four of you then went back to Freeport and went to frisbee (except for Travis). Frisbee went better than yesterday but was still a bit more relaxed than you would have liked.

You then went to the dinner that Ethan W. and Naomi were putting on for their senior project. The food was quite good and it was a nine course meal.

A collection of parts

Today you woke up around 0700 to get to school at 0800 for a practice presentation. You only went because it was required and it didn't go too smoothly because the dongle doesn't work for computers and we didn't have an actual presentation made up yet.

You then headed down to Baxter with Travis (arriving around  0915) and started work on printing the shelves for the embedded Linux computers. After getting the 3D printer started you went down stairs and glued in one end off all the thruster tubes.

You then worked on water proofing the leads to the motors as they aren't very well made at the joint where water might get in. After doing that you both headed to Portland Pie for lunch, which lasted from about 1150 to 1215.

You then went back to work on the motors some more, while Travis went to get a tux and some resistors. While he was out you tapped four metal rods that will serve as the propellor shaft and when Travis got back you press fit the onto the motors.

After that you headed to frisbee, which was at the field hockey field today because there weren't enough rides for everyone. It wasn't a great practice as nobody took it that seriously, and you hurt yourself making a diving catch.

After frisbee you headed back to your house and showered, then Josef and Travis came over around 1800. You three put together the rest of the tether while took more than an hour and a half. Then you and Travis worked on the power transfer system on the float while Josef fixed some coding issues that he had in the main Java program.

You finally finished a rough draft of the power transfer system at 2330.

Baxter and cancelled frisbee

You went to Baxter again today. Liam came over and you carpooled down to Baxter around 0930. When you arrived you got the 3D printer going to create the boxes that your embedded linux devices will be held in.

After that you worked in CAD a bit more and got the shelving done for the Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone Black. You then headed downstairs to work with the CNC router. You tried to cut out the motor slots in the thruster however the g-code was messed up. Thus you have to make more thruster modules to replace the two that were made incorrectly.

You then went back up to the computer lab and worked some more on heat-sinks. After eating lunch Mr. Amory showed up and together you three came up with the best option for the heat sinks: a metal rod that holds the LED and lens in it. Mr. Amory then modified the g-code and gave it to you to use on the CNC router.

You cut out the four thruster pieces and they are now almost ready for assembly. You then headed to Portland Pi for lunch. Upon returning you did some work in the computer lab on making a brace for the servo motor that will be doing camera tilt.

You then headed back to Freeport for frisbee practice around 1400 as the game was cancelled due to bad field conditions. At practice you made-up and taught everyone a new play called "Loom."

You then went home around 1645 and worked on the brace for the servo motor, coming up with a good if not final solution. You also talked to your dad about the connectors that you plan to use on the sub and he thinks it needs to be rethought.

Finally you started the matriculation process for Princeton by setting up and e-mail and similar things.

Baxter for 3D printing

You had a pretty good day today. You woke up around 0800 again and then headed over to Travis's. While there you made sure that the whole Hobbyking order was ready to go down to Baxter (meaning you tested motor controllers).

You then went to Baxter with Liam and worked on the camera structure. You ended up having to make it much more rigorous and held together in more places (as you broke it into more pieces). You spent almost two hours reworking the design and getting it ready to 3D print.

You then had to export all the SolidWorks files as .stl files so that the printer could use them. After getting the parts all ready you had Mr. Amory start the 3D printer. It seemed to be working well so you went and looked at the through holes. Turns our you need to modify the G-code a little so that they print better.

After that you went back to the computer lab and started work on heat-sinks. You then headed back to Freeport for frisbee, which was unfortunately cancelled due to the weather. So, instead, you went back to Travis's and worked on a couple miscellaneous things.

Then you returned to your house and worked on the heat-sinks even more. You then ate a quick dinner and headed to the Performing Arts awards (as you were part of the musical this year). After returning home you fine tuned the heat-sinks and once again arrived at a possible solution.

Miscellaneous

You woke up at 0800 again today. You then had pancakes made by your father and then you accompanied him to work so that you could grab his ethernet crimpers. You then headed to Travis's around 0930 and created four ethernet cables using the crimpers (it was much easier than using a hammer/screwdriver like the first attempt).

After that you went in town to find accessories for your prom tux and were quite unsuccessful. You then headed back to Travis's and wrote up the beginnings of two blog posts.

After that you tried to look into the problem of getting a dimmer for our LEDs working. It was unsuccessful at the time but Travis figured out the problem tonight. You then ate lunch and played darts for a break.

You helped Josef and Travis with code for the motors using the X-Box controller for about an hour. Then Liam and Josef left (around 1700) and you and Travis decided to work on the float. You two went to L.L.Bean where you bought a waterproof box for the electronics on the float (it took two tries as the rejected your check?).

The two of you then went back to your house and worked on putting the electronics neatly in the box and making a shelf for it to rest on. After that you made a rest for the battery and decided how you would attach the dish.

Finally you bough the accessories for your tux online and started a job search for the summer.

Electronic boxes and shelves

Today you were able to get a lot done, and as it was more productive you were more optimistic about the project…

You went to Travis's at 0900 again and worked on the CAD models that you have been making the last couple days. After finishing all the parts for the heat sinks you worked on creating shelves and boxes for the embedded Linux controllers. 

You then ate lunch (leftover pizza) and played a little frisbee to get some fresh air and a break from the computer from about 1245 to 1330. You then finished the shelving and the boxes to epoxy the Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone in. You then made all the pieces so that they could either be 3D printed or cut out on the 3-axis router.

You then cut out part of the float to make sure you could easily fit the batteries into it. After that you programmed motor controllers to send down to Baxter so they can finish the thrusters. Then you headed home around 1845. 

Finally you tried on the tux that you Grandfather gave you and were happy to find that it fit really well.

Camera boxes and heat sinks

You went to Travis's right off at 0900 to work on the project all day, along with the rest of the group. When you first arrived you continued to work on making boxes for the cameras to be epoxied into. It took about nine iterations to find a good solution.

You then took the finished part and broke it into pieces so that it could be 3D-printed. It is three pieces right now, providing that the proposed solution passes Mr. Amory's check for feasibility.

You then took a break and helped with the compass that Travis was working on for a little bit, and then the group went up stairs to eat lunch. After lunch you took a short break from work and played frisbee from about 1245 to 1330.

When you returned to work you started making what will (hopefully) be the final versions of the heat sinks for the lights. As usual after beginning the CAD model it looks like it might not work as well as planned…you began quite frustrated as you felt that the only thing you have done in a long time is design useless CAD models.

Then your computer auto-updated and you had to redo some of the work which made it worse. You then were kind enough to share this frustration with the group by talking about all the reasons that the submersible will not be completed on time.

Finally around 1845 you headed to Liam's for dinner. Then you went back to your house to get crimpers for ether net cables, but you forgot to ask your dad to bring them home from work so you couldn't use them.

Lastly you brought the other extender over to Travis's to fit the servo to it. You decided that was probably a luxury at this point and you will probably make it stationary for now. Overall it was a frustrating day for you but it seems that it was also fairly productive.

Back to Baxter

You woke up at 0800 today so that you could meet Travis at the hardware store at 0900 this morning. You bought screws for the power transfer system and then headed back to your house. From there you carpooled  down to Baxter Academy for the second time this week.

Your arrived around 1030 and spent the rest of the day getting the PVC cut out for the through holes. The only short break we took from working was eating lunch across the street at Portland Pie Company. You had a few issues that you had to work out, and even almost broke the CNC machine. In the end it was worth it though as the holes were very smooth and fit the through holes almost perfectly.

You then went to frisbee where Freeport won against South Portland in a fairly easy game. You stayed after the game ended to watch B-team play Merriconeag.

You then headed back to your house with Liam around 1700 and worked on the power transfer system. The original plan we had fell through (as usual) and we are now going to order parts from McMaster to put together the final version sometime next week.

Finally you went to Travis's around 2000 with Liam (Josef was already there) and you had pizza for dinner. Then you started to work on the boxes that will hold the epoxied cameras. You have gone through 3 iterations of CAD models now, and expect to have a couple more tomorrow before getting the best option.

MLTI and float work

Today you woke up at 0530 and met the rest of the team at school at 0610. You then left for UMO and the MLTI conference. You heard the opening keynote speaker talk about innovation in Maine and why the MLTI program is really useful.

You then went to sessions on coding for Mac iOS and OS X. And during the second session went to a "hacker club" meeting. At the second session you got to talk a little bit about your project and see some other cool projects.

You then ate a rather lackluster lunch before getting ready to present at 1325. The four of you then presented in front of about 800 people, which was much less intimidating than expected. The presentation seemed well received and was followed by two other cool presentations. One about a coding class taught by an eighth grader and the other about making movies (the soundtrack and video editing) using MLTI technology.

Upon returning to Freeport around 1700 you headed back to your house with Liam and Travis in tow. You then untwisted the tether so that you could add the foam and put it in a casing. It looks very nice as a finished product, however, we only purchased enough for half and so need to buy the rest on McMaster now that we know it works.

The three of us then ate ribs for dinner (courtesy of your dad) and then went to work on the power transfer system. You are using brushed from an old starter motor and aluminum sheeting to transfer the power from the batteries to the spinning spool and tether.

WHAP and a good game (5/21)

You woke up at a reasonable time (0845) and then headed to Travis's to work on the presentation for tomorrow as well as a few other things. In the end both Liam and Josef didn't come due to necessary chores…this left you and Travis to finish the presentation and work on odds and ends. You also watched Mr Amory's TED talk that he gave earlier this year in Bangor.

You then went to the library to take the WHAP test. You found it to be easier than expected and finished the test a little early. After the test Jennifer Libsack dropped off the Schmidts and Quinton so we could bring them to the frisbee game. She was also nice enough to get you a subway sandwich.

The game went pretty well, you won 15-13 in come from behind fashion. Unfortunately you either got dehydrated or got food poisoning and felt like you were going to pass out after the game.

You headed back to Travis's for a short time to practice the presentation for tomorrow and then headed home. You were looking forward to food until you started eating at which point you felt nauseous and went to bed (hence the late blog post).

PVC and heat sinks (5/20)

Today you woke up fairly early and headed down to Baxter with the whole group. When you arrived you were asked/forced to give an impromptu presentation about Project RoboGoby to Mr. Amory's class. After the class was over you headed to the computer lab with Mr. Amory and worked out how to fit the LEDs and their heat sinks into the dome, turns out the best solution is placing the lenses into the actual dome.

You then created a quick CAD model of a jig to cut out PVC, created the MasterCam code and cut out plywood using the CNC router. It was amazing how quickly the router cut out the part, and I realized that the hardest part of machining things is setting up the code and getting the piece to be perfectly in line before cutting.

After that you headed to Portland Pie for pizza, and then worked a short time more at Baxter. You then headed to frisbee with everyone but Josef (as well as Ben and Bryce Schmidt and Quinton). At frisbee you again worked on the new stacks that you came up with.

You then went home and cleaned up for the NHS induction ceremony – as a NHS officer you got to swear in next years NHS students. After that you went to Travis's house and completed the jigs for the PVC.

(Unfortunately this post is two days late as you forgot the night of and felt sick last night)

Slidshow prep

You woke up around 0800 today and studied some WHAP. Then headed to school at 1030 to meet up with the group and talk to Ms. Donovan. You also talked with Seth about the MLTI conference.

You then headed back to Travis's where you created a slideshow for thursday's MLTI conference. This meant looking back on the year and pulling out the important parts and lessons. You collected and chose pictures for the slideshow so that it had more media than just writing.

You tried making a custom theme with either the Limbeck Logo or Project RoboGoby but found it to be too obtrusive to be at all useful.

You then went to frisbee where you worked on stacks and got pretty good results. Finally you studies WHAP again in the evening, added to the presentation, and played some DND to relax/blow off steam. You also made plans to go down to Baxter tomorrow.

Dish mount and more LED work

You had another pretty successful day today. You woke up around 0730 and then went to Bob Moore's house to do yard work (he had purchased your silent auction item of yard work). You were accompanied by Sydney Ambrose, Liam Wade, and Travis Libsack.

After working until 1045 you headed back to your house. You cleaned your room, studied a little bit of WHAP and waited until the next meeting for the project at 1400. When that time rolled around Liam showed up and you guys built another part of the float.

You created a mount for the communication dish that will be stationed on the float. The challenge was to make it so that the dish could rotate (allowing it to always face the other dish), but not crush the servo that is supposed to drive it. You finished around 1730 and Liam headed out.

Then after dinner you headed to Travis's to make mock-ups of the dome with LEDs and cameras. This was helpful to an extent, and you guys think you have finally found the best solution for the LEDs. The solution calls for the LED heat sink to take the place of the dome where it is located so that there is no glare and no black plexiglass needed.

CAD...CAD...and more CAD

Today, Travis came over to your house and you worked on figuring out the density of the tether. This involved figuring out the volume and weight of the wire, foam cord, and spool covering. It looks like the tether is going to weigh more than the water it displaces and so will not float or be neutrally buoyant, instead it will sink some. This is okay as it is what happens to most lines/cords that go into the water - whether for anchors or fishing.

After that you went to Travis's house and worked on CAD models of the front of the submersible. You have been trying to figure out how best to fit the LEDs, cameras, and heat sinks into the dome and still be able to have tilt cameras and stereoscopic vision.

Today you were thrown another wrench in the fact that you are now going to have three cameras. The webcam for steaming high quality video and two raspberry pi cameras for the stereoscopic visions. This makes for a very crowded dome and is a jigsaw puzzle to try and fit everything. You probably tried about five more ways to fit everything without a great solution, on top of the other five to ten that I have already tried. Your CAD folder for lights has more than twenty files in it now, as an idea of how many models you have had to make.

You then played darts and Frisbee as a break, and then started working on blog posts for both this and the actual blog. Shortly after you left for Liam's where you all had a dinner of salad, smoothie, and chicken soup. You then headed back to Travis's and finished up the blog posts.

Baxter and camera disassembly (5/16)

You, Nick, started the day by unpacking from Model UN. Then Travis came to your house and you worked a little with the float. Then the two of you headed down to Baxter to talk with Mr. Amory and deliver a McMaster order he needed for their part of our project.

When you arrived they were setting up the CNC router to cut out motor bracing for the motor thrusters. You showed Amory our heat sink ideas and he was not a huge fan, telling us that getting to fit inside the dome would be much better.

You guys also looked into buying 10" PVC for the float because the batteries you bought won't fit in the 8" you currently have. You found the best deals on eBay, but were not able to find a good price on end caps so you decided to wait.

You then returned home to get ready for Frisbee, but first you went to the dump and met with NHS officers to plan the NHS induction ceremony. At Frisbee the team master the play called "dice" and learned a new play called "YKK." 

After Frisbee you headed to Travis's house and worked some with the camera's. It turned out that the new webcam is much bigger than expected. Even after taking of the casing so that only the circuit board is still attached to the cord the camera is 3.25" long and so barely fits in the sub. 

Model UN - USA in the UNSSS (5/13-5/15)

You decided to combine these three days into one post as most of what happened is not pertinent to your senior project. You did do some work on Tuesday morning at Travis's after you biked to his house. You ordered a few necessary parts from amazon.com and worked on the laser harp which you hope might work for senior diner…

You also did some work with planning out the rest of the week and thinking about how to do the power transfer on the spool.

Tuesday afternoon you headed to the school where the entire Freeport delegation headed to Maine Model United Nations. You had a lot over fun over the next two days. You were a part of the United Nations Special Session on Sports and were a delegate from the USA.

In the end, Freeport won the dodgeball game, the USA won best delegation, and you got the diplomacy award for your committee.

You then returned home this (Thursday) afternoon just in time to change out of a suit and head to frisbee practice. You really enjoyed getting to play frisbee and running around after a few long days of deliberation stuck in fairly small rooms with many people.

You are now fairly tired and look forward to sleeping for a long time tonight.