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Students' submarine sinks competitionFour students studying ocean engineering at the University of Rhode Island sunk the hopes of students from 11 other schools to win the third annual International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition, held in July in Orlando, Fla. Sponsored by the U.S. Office of Naval Research and the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, the event challenged student engineers to build a miniature robotic submarine that could find and identify a sunken acoustic beacon and strobe light. Once launched, the subs had to complete the mission without any external guidance or control. The URI vehicle was 5 feet long, weighed 26 pounds and cost approximately $1,000 to build. The vehicle was equipped with a pair of Lego Mindstorm RCX[trademark] computers for navigation and control. The teams that tied for second place, Cornell University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, spent about $50,000 each on their entries and needed a crane to deploy their 200-pound vehicles in the water. MIT won the event in 1998 and 1999. The URI team won $4,000 in prize money. "We were clearly the underdog in the competition, since this was our first year participating," said faculty adviser Jim Miller, associate professor of ocean engineering. "Our team and our budget was much smaller than that of the other competitors." Chosen in May after a year-long sophomore course in ocean engineering design, the URI team consisted of Ryan Freke, team captain, Rich Bashour, Jaki Foran, and Scott Veitch. The team's work was dedicated to the memory of their fifth team member, Ed King, who died prior to the championship competition. "Winning was bittersweet for us. We lost team member Ed King in May after the first URI competition. The team dedicated the effort and the win to his memory," said Miller. By Todd McLeish |
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