Posted By Evil Joker on 30 May 2010 09:15 PM
I have my kid get my ship. i just need to feed him
Ha! So true. I recover boats, too. The price? Pizza, or photos. If you don't want your defeat posted all over the internet, you'd better bring food for me.
Darren's got a point. We don't need ROV's for ship recovery. That's the easy part. If you build an ROV, all it needs to do is locate the wreck and mark it. If you're really advanced, give it a manipulator so it can dislodge a stuck float, flip the gas safety switch, or pin the barrels. There is no need to build a robot that can lift a Yamato from the deep.
In 2006, I participated in a college-level underwater ROV competition. A number of teams, including ours, found it simpler to build two smaller, specialized ROVs than to build one larger, general-purpose one. The smaller, specialized ROVs were faster, cheaper, had lower power requirements, and often could use onboard batteries instead of a bulky, heavy power cable. Simply going from a heavy power cable down to a data cable for control and video feedback reduced our power requirements and increased mobility significantly. The MIT team even reduced their connection to a tiny fiber-optic cable.
I learned a lot about ROV design from that competition, even though my team didn't do very well. If you want advice or help designing your ROV, feel free to ask.