We have been looking for a boat for about a month and we found a boat used for $130. Then we looked about a week or so later and found the same boat without a radio or a battery. It just so happens that we didn't need a radio or a battery and the boat was $50 cheaper and it was also brand new! The boat is 70 cm long (28 inches) and its wide enough to mount solar cells onto. If it was longer it would be a lot better for mounting solar cells but we thought this really followed rule #1 and the basic requirements for our boat.
we bought a battery and we are using our old arduino (we will buy a nano later). The boat came with a brushless motor, a ESC and a servo. An ESC is a electronic speed control. It calculates the position of the motor and moves the magnetic field away from the rotor to keep the motor spinning at the right speed. So if we can have the arduino send speed commands to the ESC then it can control the motors speed :D. The servo controls the rudder like a sideways piston in a way. if you don't know how a brushless motor works then we recommend you watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCEiOnuODac. So if we can control the rudder and the motor with the arduino then we can essentially drive the whole boat.
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lthough we have not posted recently, we have been working in the background, shopping for parts, the boat, brushless motors, and solar cells.
To get the quick things out of the way, we found nearly all the parts we need. We got us some prototype solar cells (because we don't exactly know this entire power situation yet), and we ordered a boat. The boat we got comes with a brushless motor, so we don't need to actually worry about getting one and then modifying the boat to slap in a motor. That's a relief. Another good thing about the boat we ordered is a lack of things it has. For example: it doesn't come with a battery. This is actually good because we are going to need to put in our own battery (Li-Ion). There's a lot of other stuff we have talked about, but none of it is really worth talking about except for this: We were discussing the navigation, and how we need to program it. The biggest problem here is probably power conservation. We have 2 things eating battery, and one thing that gives us battery. The one thing that is giving is the solar cells. The two things that are having a constant thanksgiving of power are the Arduino (Nav computer/compass), and the motor. The motor we got is going to be running 3mph, and we are estimating its going to take 3 watts. The arduino is going to probably be taking 2 watts. In case you are incapable of doing math, that's 5 watts... Not easy doing that with such a small solar cell(s).... This journey is expected to last about a week long, so we need to make the solar cells make enough power to last all day, and charge the battery to keep it going through the night. We also looked into some of the currents in the great lakes... And I can tell you this now, its NEVER the same. You can see the great lake currents here: https://www.glerl.noaa.gov/res/glcfs/currents/ I can almost completely confirm that you will not see the same we see today as i am writing this. The common current speed is about 0.5 mph. Since we have our boat traveling at 3mph, this is not a severe problem. The Autonomous Boat ProjectWe have been doing some studying and have decided that our next project is an autonomous boat. Some regular guys have sailed boats from the west coast of the USA to Hawaii, and also a couple of guys sailed across the Atlantic. Their boats were completely autonomous, using solar cells to have a almost infinite battery. While this is impressive, they broke the three fundamentals rules of any great Science Disaster project: 1. Do not spend too much of Dad's money. 2. See rule #1. 3. Check prior two rules. ^Must See^ Anyway, We decided to improve this while fully following all three rules. Our boat will be tested on local inland lakes, and then, if things go to plan, we will sail the Great Lakes! We want to start in Chicago, sailing past Beaver Island, through the straits of Mackinac, and down to the thumb of Michigan We think this is about 500-600 miles. we will want to Launch in late June for maximum sunlight to hit our solar cells. Man. We still haven't explained how this even works... So, Here is our basic plan.
We will buy a boat 28-32" long and about 8" wide and put a ton of solar cells about 10x10" on top of the boat. We will have an arduino with a compass and GPS to guide it along its path. It will need to have a battery to last ALL NIGHT!!! We will add a satellite tracker (we are not 90,000 feet up this time... So radio wont work.) so we can view it on a map as it is moving. We already started to do some research and will start posting regularly, so stay tuned ( yay :D ). I guess that wraps it all up |
AuthorMalachi and Ezra's page where we build cool stuff and either break it, set fire to it, etc. in the name of science. Archives
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