Hop-n-Bob is a sort of drop camera I built, partially using BR equipment. I take Hop_n-Bob out on my sailboat off Redondo Beach, toss it overboard and let it sink to the bottom. There it takes pictures and short video every 10 seconds. Every few minutes, it uses its thruster to Hop to a slightly different location. Eventually it drops its ballast (which are salt blocks for cattle) and returns, Bobbing on the surface. This is the 3rd in the Bob series. While it is limited by its instrument housing to 750 MSL, recent improvements include a lidar, and its Arduino Nano BLE provides compass, IMU, internal temperature and pressure data. Syntactic white foam is used for flotation. The camera is an old GoPro in a competitor’s rectangular housing mounted on one of the legs. The white light pictures are with the LEDs on; the green light pictures are from the glow of several fishing lure lights. Pictures below.
7 Likes
hey @Kansas this is so cool!!! thanks for sharing!! are you hoping to spot anything in particular or just peeping what’s out there?!
1 Like
Thanks, Elisa. I’m a JPL engineer, so I do odd things like this. Just exploring what’s down there in the Redondo canyon. Hoping to get to back down past 400 m in a few weeks. The above images are from 165 m.
2 Likes
Leaving the link to Bob’s home page here with recent dive to 349 m. Bob: A robotic drop camera