GAVIN'S
UNDERWATER DRONE

Unfortunately, school has started and therefore progress has slowed a bit, however we’re in the home stretch. This week, I finally did the epoxy waterproofing for all the endcaps. Although straightforward, waterproofing did take a decent amount of time. I had to first plan out the placement of all the wires connecting the ESCs and motors, as well as camera and ethernet cables. Because the wires start at the front of the tube, I started by cutting 6 short wires for the 2 front

Alright, rewinding back to after I tested the motors to make sure they all spun in the correct direction, what I actually did was go straight to Cockpit and attempt to drive the drone. Considering I hadn’t changed any of the settings limiting the power of the motors, you can imagine that the first time I moved the joysticks, I got a little jumpscared. The motors ramped up from 0 to a screeching sound that I at first thought was due to some kind of motor malfunction, when in r

Powering the rest of the electronics should be relatively simple, as they all simply plug into the power distribution WAGOs; however, it actually turned out to be one of the hardest parts of putting the electronics assembly together. I started with Pi’s power module, which would convert the power of the 6S battery to 5V, 5A, and plug in via USB-C. I used some adhesive strips to stick the module onto the underside of the assembly, near the WAGOs. Then, I had to figure out a

In this post, I’ll go over the details of how I managed to put (part 1 of) the electronics tube together. Going into this phase, I didn’t really have a clear idea of how I would put certain parts together, so I’ll go into detail about my thought process for each step. I started by printing out the main structural parts for the electronics, which included a mount for the Pi, a mount for the Pixhawk, and a mount for the battery. I sandwiched the Pi between the Pi mount and Pix

After a week of being locked in, I think we’re finally close to finishing the drone! I’ve made significant progress with figuring out software, buying parts, wiring, and putting everything together. In this post, I’ll go over finishing the big prints, BlueOS, testing my new ESCs, and prepping some of the electronics which will be necessary for the final build. So, continuing off of my last post, I finally began the scary printing process of the back, top, and bottom shell pi