Let’s talk about the future

We would like to talk about the future with you, yes that is right you, our beloved followers and stakeholders. We would like to talk about how our project can be improved and how future generations of Project Pisces ideas can benefit the environment and our community. Please share your ideas about future project improvements or new projects all together with us on the comment section below.

 

Our next and final blog will recap the progress of the team through the academic year as well as the hurdles we overcame and key takeaways from each student. As always you can check out our progress at out github account

https://github.com/Project-Pisces

Documentation and Delivery

Currently, the team is working on the final stages of the project including documentation and testing. At the moment all of the parts are being tested as individual units, more thorough testing of the entire system will be completed once all of the components are functional.

You can keep track of the documentation and code at the team’s public repository:

https://github.com/Project-Pisces

 

Final Touches

The team is currently working hard to add the final touches to the rover

the images below are an example of the final packaging and re-wiring needed to present a working package to our stakeholders

IBM Microscope disassembled and reassembled to fit out rover enclosure:

You can find source code instruction on how to recreate out work and more documentation at the team’s GitHub account

 

Progress Update

The team is able to recognize Chinook Salmon images from a live video stream as was intended at the beginning of the project. At the moment the notification system to alert researchers of Chinook salmon findings is through email and storing the images in local storage aboard our ship.

 

The team expects to finish a working prototype of the project by the projected deadline.

Design Validation and Integration

Design Validation

Crucial focus point for this past week has been the validation of our design choices in the ROV. Having broken down the tasks to design and failure mode analysis, the team drew up a plan within the upcoming week to individual execute these tasks, and then cross reference and double check at the end to ensure there aren’t any mistakes that were overlooked in the process.

Among the analysis items, the gating one is the force analysis the ROV will be experiencing at maximum thrust load and max river flow. With the results of this analysis, the stability and stress analysis can be done. The goal is to complete this analysis for all three of the design configurations that were initially considered from the beginning of the academic year, in order to properly display the thought process and analytical reasoning for selecting the pontoon design as the ideal one to move forward with.

Failure Modes

Given the relatively complex and high risk nature of the project, there are naturally a series of failure modes that we need to consider as a team, including but not limited to: impact stress, waterproofing, buoyancy, and RF line of sight. A set of DOEs was determined by the team to test different variables in the design to ensure the ROV is not only theoretically and practically functional, but the drone itself won’t be lost due to damage during usage.