Tortuga II lurks in the depths of Neutral Buoyancy Research Facility the day before it is packed into its crate. Raphael, the autonomous ground vehicle, idles on the course between runs at the Oct. 4, 2008 race.
What is Robotics at Maryland?
It’s a roomful of bright eyes and eager minds. We are future engineers, physicists, mathematicians, and businesspeople. In the short term, we’re building competition robots. But in the long term, we’re building a problem solving task force composed of undergraduates, grad students, professors, and corporations in our area.
Engineers working on those projects reviewed design presentations given by both our AUV and AGV groups. They provided lots of useful feedback to both teams that will be folded into some of this years work, but it will mostly be applied to next years designs. After the design reviews GDRS was nice enough to provide us lunch and give us a tour of there testing and integration center, prototype USV vehicle, ANS development building, and finally a demo of there ANS system in action.
On Monday May 7th Robotics @ Maryland (R@M) gave a well received presentation about our club, Tortuga II, and the AUVSI AUV Competition to A. James Clark School of Engineering Board of Visitors. R@M was invited by Dr. Darryll Pines, Dean of the Clark School to give the presentation as an example of a successful student group that furthers the goals of the engineering school.
Joseph Lisee represented R@M at the event and highlighted R@M's accomplishments and the opportunities it brings the club members who participate. The Aerospace Engineering and Electrical & Computer Engineering departments of the Clark School have been proud sponsors since R@M's first competition season.
Last Saturday Robotics @ Maryland (R@M) participated in Maryland Day 2009, a University of Maryland event where the public comes explores everything the university has to offer. R@M had our robots on display through out the day at the Electrical & Computer Engineering booth and Tortuga 2 was available for the public to drive at the Space Systems Lab's Neutral Buoyancy Research Facility (NBRF). Tortuga 2 was in the water from 10AM to 4PM with only a two our break.
In the above picture you can see R@M members prepping Tortuga 2 for its second dive of the day as members of the public watch. That scene was typical of the whole day, and we had dozens of kids and adults try Tortuga 2 around the NBRF.
Note: Transfered from the news archive, originally posted Apr. 16th 2009
Today Robotics @ Maryland was proud to participate in the Institute for Systems Research's (ISR) open house bringing both Tortuga 2 and our ground vehicles for display. We were there for the duration of the open house answering questions about our vehicles, competitions, and designs. We got to meet with other ISR and university faculty as well as our sponsors. ISR is a major sponsor for the club we are grateful for the support they have provided in the way of funding and lab space.
Note: Transfered from the news archive, originally posted Apr. 3rd 2009
Our second annual sponsor demo was a great success. We had all of our sponsors as well as several potential sponsors arrive at the NBRF and the following reception. We had over 30 visitors and 15 members of our club at the demo.
The event started with introductions to the AGV and AUV sides of the club by there respective leaders, Alan Yang and Tom Capon. This was followed by a live demo of Tortuga 2 doing a subset of the 2008 competition course. This subset included the orange pipes, red buoy, black jack table, and octagon surfacing task. During the demo, which Tortuga 2 completed without any major errors, Tom Capon provided a voice over describing the vehicle's capabilities.
After the demo Tortuga 2 was hoisted on deck, so that the visitors could get a better look. There was a question and answer period during which the visitors learned more about the detailed workings and design of Tortuga 2. This was followed by a reception at the Kim building during which Dr. Darryll Pines, Dean of the Clark School of Engineering gave a speech about the club's formation and student driven path to success. Both the AGV and AUV vehicles were on hand at the reception, so the public could get a close look.
Note: Transfered from the news archive, originally posted Dec. 4th 2008
Maksym Drabok from INTER TV, an international TV station based in the Ukraine, came to check out Tortuga 2 for a story on American robotics. He heard of us from our win in the 11th AUVSI International AUV Competition. We showed the news crew our vehicle driving around and performing some tasks from the competition. You can see the video here (in Russian).
Note: Transfered from the news archive, originally posted Nov. 4th 2008
Today was a short dive to record data on power use in the vehicle. The dive was a success. Unfortunately temperature logging was unavailable at the time, so a follow-up dive will be necessary to gather that data.
The data collected shows that the vehicle normally uses about 70 watts idling, and can use over 300 watts to power the motors when driving.
Note: Transfered from the news archive, originally posted Oct. 1st 2008
Our autonomous ground vehicle team placed second today in the 2008 Small Robot Autonomous Speedway Competition, in which we were required to navigate an elliptical course made of orange cones. Our car succeeded in following a cone path accurately about 1 a.m. today, and we spent this morning adapting the vision and control software to work in bright sun. We will meet this Thursday at 5 p.m. in A.V. Williams room 1203 to start designing our next land robot and to consider entering other competitions.
Note: Transfered from the news archive, originally posted Aug. 12th 2008
Tortuga II and some of our crew that went to the competition were filmed today by our local CBS affiliate Channel 9 (WUSA). We demonstrated the same mission our vehicle did in San Diego along with several other maneuvers and individual competition objectives. The story appeared on the 5PM evening news and was also covered on their website: WUSA Online Article.
Click here to view the video.
Note: Transfered from the news archive, originally posted Aug. 5th 2008
After a great awards banquet on Sunday, a party with the excellent SONIA team from ETS, and a fun time at the San Diego Zoo yesterday, we are making our way back to Maryland. While we do that you can check the press coverage below (Note media coverage has been updated over time):
Robotics@Maryland AUV Team covered in the Los Angeles Times, July 15, 2007:
It's the Super Bowl with a Science Bent: Students' creations are put to the test in an underwater robotics contest in San Diego.
Excerpt from article:
"It was time for the robotics squad from the University of Maryland to
put Tortuga through its underwater paces. ‘We need to put a diagnostic
on the board so we know the pressure at the surface,' said Stepan
Moskovchenko, 20. Joseph Gland, 24, questioned the way the craft was
descending in the practice pool.' That's not the desired angle; that's
a weird, secondary, shadowed angle,' he said. 'It's trying to yaw a
lot,' warned Joseph Lisee, 21, as he monitored readings on a laptop.
And so it went in warm-ups for the Super Bowl of underwater robotics:
the 10th annual Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Student Competition,
sponsored by the Office of Naval Research and co-hosted with the Assn.
for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, a trade group of
manufacturers. The competition ends today. At stake is a $20,000 prize
and serious bragging rights wherever students of robotics assemble."
Next Meeting:
When: Saturday July 4, 2009 1:30 PM to 8:00 PM Where: Neutral Buoyancy Research Facility (NBRF), Building 382 Comments: Testing and robot development, goes until we are "Done" food can and will be ordered if needed.
Go straight at the main gate from Route 1 and follow campus drive to the traffic circle with the big "M".
Turn right onto Regents Drive.
Turn right onto Technology Drive. It is just past the farm on the left and the Animal Science building on your left.
NBRF is the second building on your left. When you get to the front door, there will be a doorbell three feet to your right. Ring it and it will open after a few seconds.
