Flotation Spheres

Our 17" flotation spheres from Teledyne Benthos arrived today. They should help us squeeze a little more buoyancy into the AUV.

ORCA V's Final Journey

Today we reassembled ORCA V, in preparation for its exhibition at the Maker Faire. After that, it will be sent to the MIT Museum for posterity.

DC1394 Camera Driver for MOOS

Here is the first set of test images from the new DC1394 camera driver (and new generalized camera framework) in MOOS.

The driver enumerates its implementation-specific settings as individual MOOS variables to make administration (through uMS) easier.

In this case, the brightness setting was adjusted -- arbitrarily -- from its 32 (the default) up to 127 and down to 1.

Preparing Sea Perch Kits for Maker Faire

In preparation for our trip to the Maker Faire at the end of May, we are putting together 350 Sea Perch kits.

The hardest part so far was cutting 14,000 feet of Cat 5e cable (network cable) in to 350 pieces and coiling it. The blue cables on the floor here are about 200 of those.

Dead Battery

Our battery has failed.

After 3 years of faithful service, our battery was accidentally allowed drain far below the acceptable minimum voltage for Li-ion cells, effectively ruining its capacity. In fact, it would be unsafe to recharge this battery in its present under-voltage state.

We will have to build a new battery. This is unfortunate, but since these cells lose 20% of their capacity per year in perfect storage conditions, it was inevitable.

This will push our schedule back a bit...

Getting the Hang of 3D Printing

This is a scale model of the Odyssey IV vehicle, made on our 3D printer. It was supposed to help us test the design of the recovery cage that we printed out, but we made the walls too thin... so instead, it will probably become a mobile in someone's office.

The Enemy

The white gooey-looking mass covering this mussel is called "didemnum", an invasive species of sea squirt that's taking over the sea bottom in various locations off the east coast.

Although it looks like mucus, this animal is fairly firm, almost leathery. It's actually a large group of sea squirts -- cloned from a single individual -- tightly packed together.

We will be running some survey missions between mid-July and mid-August to learn more about where this species lives and how it is spreading.