Hi everyone! We’re a junior high FIRST LEGO League team working on an innovation project around underwater exploration. After talking with a few shipwreck divers, one problem that kept coming up was how hard it is to manage tools and samples underwater.
Instead of trying to design a whole new ROV, we’re thinking about simple add-on attachments for something like the BlueROV2 that could act as a mobile helper for divers.
A few early ideas:
small bins for samples
tool holders or a simple attachment plate
clip-on mesh bags for organizing items
Do any of you have input on if you think there would be merit for any of these three accessory ideas that would attach to the BlueROV2?
Thank in advance for any guidance you can give to these young inventors. Our plan is to make a prototype of one of these three ideas to give them some experience at designing and creating solutions to problems.
We’d really appreciate input from people who actually use these ROVs — do any of these sound useful, or are we solving the wrong problem? Any advice or reality checks welcome. The kids are excited to learn from people with real experience.
Hi @robhaake03, welcome to the forum, and thanks for involving us in this project journey!
I’m unfamiliar with this kind of workflow - have the shipwreck divers mentioned that they already use ROVs for support while they’re diving (which you’re trying to augment), or is the whole idea of including an ROV for support part of what you’re suggesting, and you’re now trying to come up with features that would make that a (more) worthwhile thing to do?
I could imagine an ROV (and/or other robotic / sensor-driven approaches) being used for preliminary exploration and location discovery, then perhaps divers could follow the tether (and lights) to efficiently find (and return from) a wreck. During diving an ROV could help provide lighting, collect data, and relay signals from the divers back up to the surface in real time.
Your presented ideas are predominantly around the ROV holding things for a diver, which could have some merit, but is maybe best thought of in terms of closable storage for lightweight items that allow the diver to remain unencumbered. It’s hard to evaluate the viability of the specific ideas without a better sense of what problems the divers are needing to solve, but in principle I imagine storage solutions would need to prioritise being both secure (can’t lose items) and accessible (grasping and manipulating things can be a challenge). There are limits to how much can readily be lifted/moved by a given vehicle (its “payload capacity”), but again how those limits are determined and worked around likely depends on what needs to be carried, when, and where.
