Cornice Avalanches on Mars

Nasa's wrong. Please inform them

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If we build it, the world will change.

If we can make economical, safe, ocean going homes that can link together, it will change the world.   People will be able to live, work, and trade while on the ocean.  Groups can get together to cross the ocean or go on any tour.   Groups could join up to work on projects.   Trading while on the ocean becomes easy.    This will change the world.  We must build it.

Putting Foam in Boat

Our foam got lost in Miami on its way here but eventually showed up.

Anguilla is so warm, and we did this in the late afternoon, that the foam reacted really fast.   Next attempt we will first put foam A and B parts in fridge and do it in the early morning.   First attempt had maybe 1/5 gallon each of A and B.  I think we got more into the boat than was left in the bucket.  We tipped the trailer to try to get the first batch of foam to flow toward the back of the boat.   We may stick a go-pro inside to take some pictures and see what really happened inside the boat.

Anguilla is warm and this makes the foam react faster.  So we put the A and B parts in the fridge overnight and did another test.    It did take much longer to react but it flows so slowly that I still don't think we have much chance of getting the boat really full of foam.   I am afraid that we would get pockets that once water got in would be hard to drain the water from.  

So now I am thinking we go on to make a real Quadmaran before attempting to send a robot across the Atlantic.    So will save the rest of the foam for this.

Will use this boat to test electronics and software but not too far from land.   Will also try to patch holes and get a better cork.

TowBot Mechanical Testing

We are still waiting for some of the electronic parts for the robot to come in the mail but we have the trolling motors and hull so we did some testing today.   We made a U-shaped frame of wood and painted it red.  Then attached this wood frame to the boat with bungee-cords.  The motors come with mounting clamps so once there was something for them to clamp onto, mounting one on each side to the wood frame was easy.  The battery is inside a water-resistant case with a circuit breaker to minimize risk from a salt-water splash on the battery.

When the phone/computer controls this it will steer by adjusting the power sent to the two motors.   Putting more power to the left side makes the boat turn to the right and more to the right makes it turn left.   This makes for a simple design as there is no rudder to control, it is just turning motors on and off.  So we had to try steering this way with humans.

We started out with Teryn facing backward so his feet could be down inside the boat and Dad dragging in the water behind to be able to act as a rudder.  With this Teryn could control the boat fine and I could turn it with my body if he left throttles alone.   We later decided having the captain looking forward is better.  We also tried Teryn driving without Dad in the water behind and he found it hard to control.   I also tried this and also found it hard.  We could sort of manage at slow speeds.   I suspect with a bit more practice we could get used to it and also that a computer will not have trouble.

If you click on a picture you can get a larger version with more detail.  The above picture is not in chronological order but it seems the best at showing how everything was.  Zoomed in you can see bungee-cords and everything.

I think we are calling this 12 foot robot "TowBot".  We will use it as a "Tow Boat" and is is also a "Toy Boat" and a "Robot".

The boat took on a lot of water, probably more than 100 lbs in like 1 hour.   It has been in the basement since before I had kids, so more than 14 years.   I will look into just filling the inside with foam.   At the moment it is not in good enough shape to go to an island 10 miles away, let alone Africa.

We chose today for our first test because it was a particularly calm day.  The boat is very stable and has lots of power.   The instructions for the 46 lbs thrust motors say they can push a boat up to 2,000 lbs and our boat is more like 250 without humans and 500 with humans, and we have two motors.

Robot Boat Transportation Device

Robot boat transportation device. On its own the laser hull would go on top of the jeep, but fitted with all the robot and solar stuff it would not work. This used trailer will do the trick. Now to make the robot.  First step will be to mount the motors and the battery and test that much out.  Hope to launch Sunday.  Don't have all the parts for the robot yet but should in the next week or two.

Improving Odds of Robot Crossing the Atlantic

After building and learning what we can from our 12 foot solar robot boat it really seems like it would be fund to send it across the Atlantic.  There have been a number of other attempts to send small home made robot boats across the Atlantic but it seems so far all have failed.  So maybe we could be the first!

Our boat is not self righting.  If it turns over that is probably the end of our attempt.  There is some chance that another big wave tips it back over.   With the daggerboard down in the water it is more stable in the upright position so it could end up that way even after tipping a few times.   I am sure many people reading this think we will never make it across the Atlantic without the ability to self right.    I think we still have a good chance.    Let me try to explain my thinking.

First it would really take a breaking wave to flip this boat.  This is something that comes from storms.   If we are going from around 18 degrees North in the non-hurricane season we can mostly avoid storms.   If we can send the robot new waypoints over a sat-link to avoid a storm it may never run into a storm.

The boat is 4+ feet wide and has enough stability for a sail.  Without a sail and the leverage that gives the wind, it would not tip over easily.  Also, the battery or batteries will be very low in the boat.

I think the main danger will be at the crest of a large wave.  The phone has motion sensing so we could write code so that it knows when it is coming to the crest of a wave.   It could then point the boat into the wave and slow down to minimize the risks.  We will generally be headed into the wind so most of the time we will be pointed into the waves.

If one motor breaks we can still use the forward/reverse capability of the other motor to control which way the boat is pointed.   With the wind mostly blowing the boat back toward Anguilla if the boat is pointed the right way the daggerboard should be enough to bring the boat home.  So even if a trolling motor fails we should get the boat back and be able to try again.

We have played with vision software on our phone enough to recognize a yellow tennis ball inside our house.   Recognizing a large patch of brown seaweed floating on a blue ocean is probably something we can do.  So we may be able to avoid large patches of seaweed.   A small clump on the surface probably does not stop us.  The propellers are down in the water a ways as is the daggerboard.

We could put in lots of batteries and try to run the motor all night or we could have the boat turn sideways in the night and just drift slowly.

Some of the things that could still go wrong:
   1) Phone or other critical electronics could die
   2) Both trolling motors could fail
   3) We could run into seaweed in the dark when our vision could not help us
   4)  Camera can get crusted over with salt and the robot go blind

There are websites that report seaweed locations.  We might be able to avoid the seaweed just by going when there is not much seaweed.   In the 20 years I have been in Anguilla most of the seaweed I have seen is in the last year.  I think in another few months we might be back to normal.

We can probably work out something to keep the camera from going blind.

There are still challenges to solve but it seems possible.

Satellite Data Link Ordered

We will test our 12 foot solar robot boat around Anguilla using cellphone Internet but it really would be fun to try to send this boat across the Atlantic to Africa.  For that we will need some sort of satellite data link.  It would be best to test the sat link early on as well.  So I have looked into it more and ordered one.

At a minimum we want the robot to report its location but we would also like to report more than that.  Things like wave height, tipping angles, current speed, battery level, etc.   Also, if the robot can receive data we could send it new waypoints if it was headed for a storm or something.  We could also decide it was having trouble and should just head home so we can improve things and try again.  It seems much better if we can both send and receive data.

There is Iridium Go that gives you a wifi hotspot with real Internet.  This would work great with our Android phone.   The problem is the device is around $1,000 US and the data service is like $150/month.   This is out of our budget range for something we might send off into the ocean and never see again.

There is Spot which uses GlobalStar.   Spot says they have good coverage for data in the Atlantic.   GlobalStar says they don't have voice coverage off of Africa where we might be headed.    But GlobalStar does say their data coverage is good.   Spot can only send messages and not receive.   There are a number of Spot devices easily found on Amazon including ones that work with a cellphone.   So the big drawback is just that it can not receive.

There is Orbcomm which has sats in LEO (low earth orbit) so a small device can reach them.   We can get service contracts for $17/month and only $7/month when we are not really using it.  We can send and receive data.   It is not realtime as the data may sit on a sat for a bit till it is near a groundstation or our boat but that is fine for us.

I have ordered a Quake Q1000 modem to work with Orbcomm.   It has an RS232 port so I also ordered an RS232 to Bluetooth converter.   With this I think we can send and receive data from our Android phone over satellite.   It was hard to find a retail outlet for these and I ended up finding one on Ebay for about $100 US.