It has been a long time since my last update.  The last major ROV event was our trip to the Aquatic Center to test the performance of the ROVs in a large body of water.  Student groups made observations regarding the performance (good and bad), and brainstormed ideas on how to improve their ROV.

This week we are devoting some time to making those adjustments.  Before any adjustments can be made, students needed to collect data to support their modifications.  Many of the student groups completed speed testing back in December, but several of them were not able to complete their tests until now.  Below is a sampling of the work that is happening now.

Above is a quick video showing how a group collects motion data.  You can see that as the ROV moves in the tank the handheld data collector creates graphs of position vs. time and velocity vs. time.  Students will then interpret this information and post it to their blogs.

To the left you see a student analyzing his ROV data on both the LabQuest as well as his PC.

Data like this provides students with the necessary measures to inform decisions for design adjustments as well as providing baseline data for evaluating any further adjustments to the design of the ROV.