Friday,
June 20, 2003
by Beckie-Anne
Thain
Friday morning we arrived at the Zesiger
Sports Centre pool at 8:45 am. Shortly after, the judges dropped
by our display. They asked us many questions about the design,
construction, and operation of our vehicle.
The rest of the day we tested Nina
Harper in the huge MIT pool. Amazingly we had no problems!
Then, half an hour before our competition time we ran into trouble.
Our trim pods stopped working—the ROV was out-of-control!
What was the problem? We frantically
captured the ROV and hauled it out of the water. Nothing looked
wrong. We decided to pull the card cage out of the termination
can and started checking circuits with the multimeter. Circuit
by circuit tested out okay.
In desperation we decided to change the R/C receiver battery.
Sarah quickly reprogrammed the controller and we resealed the
card cage in the termination can. This corrected the trim pod
problem and—with just minutes to spare—we were back
in the competition! As we waited nervously to be called, Sarah
and I prayed together. Then we ran over the checklist and reminded
each other of last minute details.
Finally we were called. We got through
our five minute set up in four minutes. I held the ROV and waited
for the starting signal from the judges.
“Go!”
We were off. I helped guide Sarah through
the first 60 centimetre square opening, but after that she was
on her own. Sarah dove deep to the bottom deck and began capturing
the C-probes out of the four rooms.
After 10 minutes Sarah brought Nina Harper up to the
surface. I emptied 10 C-probes from the Sucker and Nina Harper
quickly dove back down into the top deck. With nine minutes
left we cleared the first room. Six minutes left we cleared
the second room. Four minutes left and we had one room to go.
We weren’t quite sure if we could make it. Sarah asked
the judges to yell at her when only two minutes were left.
We sucked up one C-probe, then another,
then heard the call: “Two minutes left!” We decided
to leave the two remaining C-probes and play it safe. We had
done it! We had retrieved 18 C-probes!
Five minutes later, our scores were
posted on the billboard, 51 out of 55 points (plus whatever
time bonus each team received). It was a relief that it was
all over. Now we could sit back and enjoy the competition.
That night we had dinner with our friend
Bob Clarke, who manages ROV operations for Aquatic
Sciences Group.
Introduction
|
April
22, 2003 |
| November
25, 2002 |
April
28, 2003 |
| November
28, 2002 |
May
2, 2003 |
| December
5, 2002 |
May
12, 2003 |
| December
19, 2002 |
May
19, 2003 |
| January
23, 2002 |
May
26, 2003 |
| January
30, 2003 |
June
3, 2003 |
| February
13, 2003 |
June
10, 2003 |
| February
28, 2003 |
June
19, 2003 |
| March
7, 2003 |
June
20, 2003 |
| March
14, 2003 |
June
21, 2003 |
| March
20, 2003 |
|
|
| Judges asking Beckie-Anne and Sarah about Nina Harper |
| Nina Harper diving into the model of the Titanic |
| The view from the pilot’s monitors |
|
