Friday, April 2, 2010

ROV Dry Land Run Through by Sea Scouts

Finally the Sea Scouts have the ROV "Indomitable" assembled and in great working order. We placed the tasks as they are laid out on the MATE  video. This is a great demonstration video and we watched several times to get a good idea of the requirements.


Gideon acted as our prime mover as Nate operated the claws on the mechanical arm.

There was no problem removing the pin from the elevator releasing the HRH and placing it on the site emitting the sound picked up by the hydrophone.

The ROV "Indomitable" then moved over and removed the cap from HUGO and placed the connector in the port..



The next task required the ROV to maneuver into a six foot long cave and remove, after hitting the back wall,  three samples of a new species of crustacean.

Not so easy, the claw grabbed two but only surfaced with one crustacean.  A redesign of the claw coverings maybe needed?

(The next task of sampling the temperature of three vents is a work in process. The cabling is in the tether and the thermocouple is in place.)


Picking up the sample of the bacteria mass was relatively simple with Gideon positioning the ROV.

It remains to be seen if the rear tilt motor will have enough power to thrust the sampling tube into the mass.

Below is a photo of the camera picture on a computer along with the control box.  The compressed air gauges are on the left.  Next week we have the first in the pool test!!!!


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