The Ocean Lab Livestream Antarctica #1: Build your own Underwater ROV - Erica Moulton & Ashley Bugge

Описание: The Ocean Lab Live presents Part 1 of our Antarctica livestream series with Blue Green Expeditions! Erica Moulton, STEM Director at St. Petersburg College, will show you how to build a simple underwater ROV (Remote Operated Vehicle) from a plastic coat hanger and some easily attained objects with the help of fellow diver, educator and explorer, Ashley Bugge....brought to you by Blue Green Expeditions!

Learn more about our oceans and our live streaming into classrooms here: www.theoceanlab.com

Learn more about how you can get involved with Citizen Science through trips with Blue Green Expeditions here: www.bluegreenexpeditions.com

Learn more about robots in the book Erica mentioned here: https://www.westcoastwords.com/build-...

HERE IS WHAT YOU NEED TO MAKE YOUR OWN Coat Hanger ROV:

One plastic coat hanger

Two Ping Pong Balls

1 roll of electrical tape (just need a few pieces per ROV)

1 section of 18 gauge/stranded wire - 2 pieces, this is usually old phone wire, but you can ask for thermostat wire too. You can ask at a hardware store for 18/6 or 18/8 wire - the outer jacket is typically white or gray and inside are 6 or 8 stranded wires in colored jackets so red, green, blue, brown, black and white and purple orange. You need 6ft +- for each kit

6 V lantern battery for power. - one battery can run multiple ROV kits

Propeller - 1 per ROV

1 motor per ROV kit

Tongue depressors or popsicle sticks - 2 per ROV

Pool rings or a mission - a 6 pack is good

Wire strippers

CONSTRUCTION:

1. Take the single hanger and hold it so the hanger hook is down.

2. Tape the motor with the propeller facing up inside the hook.

3. Tape the two ping pong balls, to the upper part of the hanger, let participants experiment with placement.

4. Strip the insulation off of both of the wire ends about 1”. May already be done for you.

5. Twist one end of a wire to one terminal of the motor and twist the other wire to the other terminal of the motor. You can braid the wires together to make it neater.
Now you are ready to dive the ROV. Place in the water and touch one wire to one battery terminal and the other end to the other battery terminal to power the motor. Troubleshooting If it doesn’t sink you may try switching the polarity, which reverses the motor and prop direction. If it still doesn’t sink then you may need to tape some additional weights to the hanger. Rules to remember The floats must be above the weights and the ROV has to float before it sinks. That’s it. Have fun! If you want something more complex then add a hanger to the structure and tape a couple of horizontal motors to it. Then figure out how to switch it on and off, etc... but this one is the simplest to do. It goes down and up. You can make variations. Do not run the motor in saltwater, or it will short out.

Additional photos courtesy Erica Moulton