02x08 - Aquatic Robots

[bunniefuu]

♪ We've got two days to get this straight

♪ We got a challenge just won't wait

our eyes are on the prize ♪ An engineer

just set the date ♪ We got this client

can't be late oh, no, it's go time

♪ Build it, test, fix it debug now and kick it

♪ Got to get it off the ground yeah

♪ Stick around and you'll see what teamwork's supposed to mean

♪ It's so key Design Squad

Design Squad!♪

Whoa!

[ laughter] All right, Design Squads, if

that shocked you, wait until you see what today's client

wants you to do.

Roll the tape.

Here it comes.

Hold onto your seats.

Whoo!

Hello, everybody, and welcome to Super Duck Excursions.

My name's Christine.

What we're in is an amphibious watercraft.

It's a hydraterraduck, which means our tour includes a land

and water portion.

You'll see off to the starboard side there's a building there

with a cone-shaped roof.

That actually marks the landing point of the British troops that

came to invade Boston during the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Just past this gray hunk of metal, the Cassin Young,

is the famous USS Constitution.

Back in its heyday, it fought battles.

And of those battles, it never lost-- not a single one.

As you can tell, the last yards of the tour are rather

quiet.

I have to improvise a lot.

This is where you come in, Design Squads.

I want you to build us a radio-controlled aquatic robot.

It could be anything-- use your imagination-- as long as it

surprises and entertains our guests.

And it would be really great if it could circle around our boat.

It would make a big splash at the end of our tour.

I'll take the winning robot on my next tour.

Good luck, Design Squads.

All right, there's your challenge-- you're building

underwater robots.

Any questions?

Can we get started?

I don't see why not.

This is awesome.

I've never been so excited about a challenge.

So we have to make a sea creature.

I think if we try to be really serious with it, it will just

come off looking stupid.

Yeah.

I just want to go play around with this.

This in itself is fun.

How would we turn that thing?

We're using a remote control, so I imagine that we could rig

something up.

So Dewey is working with Kim.

Yeah.

Okay, for the body, right?

Body design.

When you guys come up with an animal, a creature, you know...

We'll keep you informed, Tomas.

Yeah, thank you.

We have to somehow alter this so that it moves straight, we

can turn it, and it can go up and down in the water.

Why isn't this working?

Because it's not plugged in.

This is Nick's creature.

How long is it going to be?

Like, feet.

That's more than three times my height.

I know.

It's going to be three times as cool as you too.

[ laughter] That was one of those...

okay, are we serious about this?

Yeah, no doubt.

If somebody saw that, they'd be, like, "Oh, that's obviously

a joke."

But if somebody saw, like, something that looked a bit like

a shark, then they'd start freaking out.

What if we do, like, a lobster?

Lobster?

Ooh.

Wait, where are you going with this?

It can be, like, kind of, like, this, like, shocking,

surprising thing, or it's, like, "Oh, look over there, there's

the big, giant lobster of the Mystic River."

And then, like, it pops up for a second, then it's gone.

It would be easy to...

I'm sold on lobster.

Okay, so lobster.

We all have decided we all like it?

Let's get to it now.

So how big do we want this to be?

Because I was thinking we'd use, like, the length of the table,

lengthwise, for, like the two claws and the head.

The only thing I'm worried about is the weight of it.

If it's too heavy, this thing might not be powerful enough to

push it up out of the water.

I don't even think it's going to be a problem with it being

too heavy.

I think it's going to be a problem of it being too buoyant.

So, then, our issue would be sinking this thing.

Oh, oh!

You know how they have the dragon races every year on the

river?

What if that could be part of our story?

Like, "Many years ago, one of the dragon boats came to life

and it, like... and it, like, swam off through the water

and..."

I think we should put this under the head and let the body

just go free.

So how long do we want it to be?

feet.

Why do we have to make it that long?

Well, you just need it long so everyone on the boat can see it.

If it's small, they're not going to see it, especially if it's at

a distance.

I also thing that, you know, building a -foot sea monster

in, what, like, a day and a half we have left is just really

impossible.

I don't think so.

There's four people.

I mean, we'd have to work really fast.

Because I just don't want to, like, have it be half finished

and then have to show it.

This would be a little more jagged, obviously.

This is perfect for the claw.

Really?

It's perfect-- left and right.

We'll do the claw.

Purple Team plans to use waterproofed servo motors to

open and close the lobster's claws.

And here's how.

A radio-controlled transmitter will send radio waves to a

receiver and battery placed in a waterproof container.

The receiver will decode information in the radio waves

and send electrical signals that run the servo motors.

The servo motors will then be connected to spools of string

that wind up to close the claws and unwind to open them.

How's it going?

What we've thought of doing was just, like, a lobster, like,

claw up, kind of.

Like, it's... it's under the water, but its claws are, like,

extending out of the water.

Kind of like this?

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

So what are you guys thinking of for the moving up and down

part?

To make the entire boat go up and down would be really hard,

because it will take a lot of force to take this out of the

water.

True.

You get me?

That's very true.

If it's buoyant enough to lift, that means it's going to take

equal force to push it down.

What if we put the whole DPV on a pivot of its own so that we

that we can turn it?

Or is that too complicated?

I wouldn't worry about turning it, because your up and

down thing is simpler than you think.

I mean, what you guys could actually do is just stick your

big concrete weight at the bottom of the water right there.

Here's your water level up here, and then have your platform

that's buoyant and fix the claws to it.

This whole thing is tied to a motor, like a winch, so you let

out the rope and the whole thing floats up and the claws rise out

of the water.

Then you tighten the rope back down and then you can spend the

whole rest of the time making these look really good.

We know we're doing a sea monster, but we can't even agree

on dimensions.

How are we going to do cutting and getting it done if we can't

even figure out what the size is going to be?

We don't know, you know, who...

Well, we know we're going to make the head, right?

That... that we know.

But no one's going to see the head.

Tell us what you think they're going to see.

Well, I thought they would see, like, maybe a fin and part of a

tail.

So here's the back, and then we have the propeller thing

underneath.

And if that's all they're going to see, then that's all we have

to make.

Windshield wiper motors.

Yeah, watch out for that.

That'll happen.

Works better, yeah.

It seems like the DPV's motor was much more powerful.

Do we have to do a motor?

I'd rather just, like... I'll pull it myself.

Here's how Kim plans to pull the claws under water.

She'll be on shore pulling a rope that's fed through a pulley

anchored on the bottom of the river.

But more pulleys could make it easier for her to pull.

With two pulleys, each of the two vertical sections of rope

will pull down with the same force that she applies to the

rope, so her force is doubled, and she only has to pull half as

hard to pull the claws under water.

With four pulleys, the downward force will be almost four times

the force she applies.

But instead of going manual, Tomas and Jason want to use an

electric winch.

I can tell you right now it is not going to work.

Well, you've got to prove it first.

What is so wrong with doing it manually?

And when was the decision made to not do it manually?

Because what if they use electronics?

It's easier for the woman to use it, right?

Let's just think about this, all right?

We're trying to make something that's remote controlled that's

going to be, like, some-odd-feet underwater.

How deep is that going to be?

feet.

feet.

feet?

Okay.

So how are we going to make that work?

I'd like to make sure of the fact that it won't work or that

it will work before we get rid of it.

And if we have something manual, it's pretty much like the tour

company has to hire somebody to pull a rope.

Right.

Job description-- "Pull a lobster in and out of the

river."

Tomas and Jason, I don't know if they're on the same page, but

they definitely want to try and get a motor thing working.

I wouldn't even say we're on different pages.

We're in different books.

Someone's got to swallow their pride and go with the other

idea.

You know, if it works, it works.

If it doesn't, it doesn't.

But we at least got to start working on something, because

working on two separate ideas, nothing's going to get done.

I'm going to make the pulley, because I have faith in the

pulley idea, though no one else seems to have faith in the

pulley.

We are just going to make a test model of the sea monster so

that we can go out to the pool and see how it looks.

I guess I'm the odd man out, teamed with all girls.

Seems to be working okay.

Got off to a slow start, but things are rolling now.

If we made it so it sunk, then it can just... as it went

forward, it'd come up and then we could drop it down just...

Yeah, then we turn it off and then it will sink again, and

then we turn it on and it will go up.

Can we put this in the water just to see how it works?

Now turn it on.

Back and forth.

It's coming up, it's coming.

Now it's going down.

Up, down!

Oh, I love it.

Can we just, like, tie it around here.

All right, so I'm going to unleash it.

Ready?

Look.

It's going absolutely insane.

The sea monster is wreaking its revenge.

I'm going to be under the water, and let's see if it's

going to work.

Hey, guys, check it out.

I'm ready to test too, after all of what, oh, five minutes?

Let's go.

Tie that end, like, all around.

No, it got off.

It got off the pulley.

It needs more weight if we're going to... if we're going to

use the...

This is insanely buoyant.

I can't even put it...

Well, I don't... I don't think we should use that foam if

it's that insanely buoyant.

We shouldn't.

Where do you want to tie this?

Here.

Can you see if that motor has the power to bring this buoyant

piece of foam underwater?

Turn it on, my friend.

Okay, it's... it's turning.

It's turning.

Just turn this upside down.

It's bringing it down.

No.

I'm putting some weight into it, my friend.

Oh, it's off.

Oh.

That came off?

This thing does not want to go down.

Well, maybe we should just use the pulley.

I like the pulley idea as a backup plan if the motor doesn't

work.

I just don't want our design not to be picked because of the

fact that someone has to be onshore to pull it.

But I feel like with that, anything could go wrong at any

time.

One is not, like, magically better than the other.

It's just a matter of what can we get done tomorrow.

I think the pulley is the most efficient way of getting

things done.

I think so too, in terms of, like, what we can do in the time

that's left.

Yeah.

The main thing that we got from the test was that we like

the chaotic movement of the DPV.

But we couldn't really steer it.

Like, the front end sunk down, and the back end was up.

So basically, the only movement that we had was, like, up, down,

up, down.

I feel like we're going all over the place, and we don't

really, like, know what we are doing.

If the pulley is the best choice, then I'll go with that.

I really don't want to much digress going on tomorrow,

because I want to get it done.

Ladies and gentlemen, put your tools down.

That is it for day one.

I'd say day one was a disaster.

Everything we did was just marred with failure.

And as soon as we had minor successes, those were met with

greater failures.

I think day two we just got to slap some sense into one

another.

I know we're all eager to get started, but I think more

important than anything else we need a...

We should probably have a design.

I was thinking that we have a pulley platform.

So these are our pulleys.

And I imagine we need weights here.

And then, like, a pulley would come off here, and you'd

pull this...

I think the big thing is get these two things done so they

all function together with this well, then we can rig up a

pulley system.

So we have the body, and it's just going to be like that,

right?

Yeah.

And then we wanted to have a DPV like that.

We could even have, like, I don't know, some kind of pivot

here so that we could make it go up and down as well as side to

side.

Green Team's sea monster idea revolves around a diver

propulsion vehicle, or DPV.

The DPV has been modified so a radio control system can be used

to change its speed.

The DPV will be mounted on a pivot, or gimbal, that's powered

by a waterproof servo motor.

That allows the DPV to rotate and the monster to bob

up and down.

A rudder will be mounted behind the DPV and connected to a servo

motor, so Green Team can steer the monster left and right.

Deysi and I could work on the rudder.

Me and Leah will work on the platform.

Just cut this line and this line.

Right now we're making our platform.

It's pretty much a sandwich structure with a buoyant piece

of foam in the middle and then two pieces of wood, one on top

and one on the bottom.

Should we test to check to see how buoyant it is?

I think it's a pretty high priority to get the buoyancy

correct for the amount of mass that you're putting on it.

You don't want to have to pull to hard to get this thing to

sink, right?

Right now it would probably hold up about two of you, which is

totally overkill, and that would take a lot of force to pull.

What you want to do is trim the foam to the point where it just

floats for the amount of weight you have.

For the lobster claws to stay afloat, Archimedes' principle

tells us that the weight of the water displaced by the platform

and ballast must equal the weight of the entire structure.

But as the platform and claws are pulled under, more water is

displaced, increasing the buoyant force and making them

harder to submerge.

So Purple Team should use only enough foam to hold the claws

just above the water.

If the platform floats too high, the extra buoyant force may be

to large for them to pull it under.

If we ballast it enough...

...it will give us a stable position.

We got the platform taken care of.

I guess the next step would be to make the supports on the

side.

Like that.

If it's like that, then if we have the buoys here...

Deysi, I just finished cutting it, so let me see how it

fits.

I cut two notches in each side so we can have a pivot point for

our DPV.

We're going to put rods in right there and right there.

The purpose of this total apparatus is so that when this

is connected to our monster, or the back of the monster, it will

be able to pivot on these rods, and it'll be able to make the

foam back go up and down.

Okay, so I just finished cutting the rudder.

So now I'm about to attach the servo to the rudder.

So you want to attach it?

Sure.

It looks great.

How should I line this up to drill the hole?

In the words of Tomas, "Eyeball it, my friend."

Eyeball it?

Okay.

You guys, we really need to get cracking here, because we're

moving too slow.

We have to test within the next minutes to make sure this is

working, and if it doesn't work, then we're in big trouble for

day three.

Whoo!

Victory!

We just took a bunch of strips of polystyrene, and we cut

different tight curves so they all fit together, and then we

could use contact cement to put them together.

This is sort of the general shape of the back of the

creature.

I'm just waterproofing the radio controller, and we'll be

all ready to go soon as I'm done.

Okay, so I didn't finish the sea monster.

It's all right, guys.

We can test it.

I hope this works.

You ain't the only one.

Are you ready?

Yeah.

Can you turn it?

Don't k*ll me.

That's good, that's good.

That's good, good, good.

That's why we have the rudder though.

What we're going to do is attach this controlling

mechanism onto our claws so we can close them and open them

again.

It's only going to go, like, this much.

What's that?

What do you mean?

The nylon thing.

That's what's going to be opening and closing the claw.

How?

Once it is attached here securely and it goes up like

that.

Oh.

[ humming theme toJaws ]

Whoa.

I am this close, literally this close, to getting this

ready to go.

Thanks to tiny screws, that close is...

Stop whining.

In all honesty, if the servos don't work, I say we either give

up on them, or I will scream very, very loud.

If they fail, I will give up and I will cry.

We have to test all of that.

I want to make sure that they don't fall off the pulley.

Dare we mount this outside?

Sure.

Nice.

Guys, this is to big to work.

[ foam creaking] Great.

It just sounded bad.

It did not break.

The pulley system's all tangled.

See if I can get down under.

That doesn't work.

It's not going to work?

Okay.

If we had more time, we could have made the other claw work.

We're just going to elastic band it.

Wait, is there space for this one?

How does it look?

Uh-oh.

The wire broke again.

We need stronger wire.

Yeah.

Think fast.

I think it's going to tear the wires out.

Well, we just lost everything.

Oh.

The control bottle's completely filled with water.

It was, like, so close.

This is what we're giving to our client.

There's no...

That's what I'm kind of worried about, because right now

it's...

If it's at a far-off distance from the boat, it will just look

like white claws.

If we had gotten straight to business, we could have tested

this two hours ago and been able to make the changes that we need

to make.

Design Squads, this is Dennis, the owner of Super Duck

Excursions.

Hi.

Green Team, you're up first.

Hi, Dennis.

So we tried to go for a sea monster.

We have a DPV attached to that metal plank over there.

We have full rudder movement and forward and backwards control.

We just ran into some complications and didn't really

finish, but we can show you what we did have.

This has design potential.

It would need to be modified by putting in some ballast and

keeping the bulk of the unit hidden.

I would have liked to seen something a little more finished

and a little more thought out.

Everything is about deadlines when you get into business, so

if you fall short of that, you haven't accomplished your goal.

All right, Kim, why don't you explain your build to Dennis?

All right.

Our concept was a renegade lobster that had sort of escaped

from the local seafood shack.

Right.

Dewey has to submerge the lobster claw with a pulley.

So he's going to try doing that right now.

And as you can see, he's pulling very hard, but,

unfortunately, we had a few kinks to work out, and it's not

submerging.

That's a workman's comp claim right there.

This seems more labor-intensive than the other one.

As the client, Dennis, in your eyes, are either of these

projects worth awarding the Design Squads points?

Well, I think that the Purple Team, although they tried very

hard, their concept really doesn't fit what we were looking

for.

And the Green Team has some merit, but again, not finishing

the project.

You didn't ultimately meet the needs of the client in the

deadline, right?

One of your resources is time.

You have to manage that just as you manage your construction

resources and your personnel resources.

So this is an unprecedented moment in Design Squadhistory,

but we're going to award zero points to either team.

Points will be awarded again next week, providing that you

guys can meet the needs of the client.

I never want to have another meeting with a client like this.

It was... it was horrifying.

I've learned from this, and I'm just going to... this is

just going to motivate me to do better on the next challenge.

And I was kind of embarrassed.

Like, I didn't want to show it to him.

It was that bad.

So the teams can turn humiliation into inspiration

when they get shuffled up next time on Design Squad.

Hey, have you checked our Web site?

Yeah, it's pretty cool.

You can build projects on your own or with your friends, and

you can win cool stuff.

Oh, check it out.

Go to pbskidgo.org.

Coming up... watch out below!

Oh, the humanity!

Next time on Design Squad.

My name's Anthony.

I'm a mechatronic engineer.

Mechatronic engineering is a combination of mechanical and

electrical engineering.

It definitely has a bit of a ring to it, you know.

You got to admit-- mechatronic.

And I work on robots.

This is the biomimetic marine engineering laboratory at

Northeastern University.

You know, the best way to learn how things are done is by

looking at nature.

The project that I'm doing in the lab is a lamprey swimming

robot.

A sea lamprey is an animal like an eel, and it swims in, like,

this S shape.

Okay, I'm turning it on now.

Tell me if it's moving.

It's using control circuitry and the mechanics of shape memory

alloy, and that's producing a swimming movement exactly like a

real, live lamprey.

We can get it to swim towards a target, and they can detect and

destroy sea mines and save people's lives.

I love this job because it allows me to play and have fun.

That's true.