Live webcast: http://www.robosub.org

The Underwater Robotics Club provides students with an exciting opportunity to apply classroom skills to a challenging design project: an autonoumous underwater vehicle. Although we're primarily affiliated with the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, our team is comprised of students from a variety of engineering and science disciplines including Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, Math and Physics. In 2006, we debuted Seawolf II at the AUVSI International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition in San Diego. We ranked 7th place in static judging, and 9th place overall among 21 teams from all over the world. During the competition, the vehicle had 15 minutes to complete several challenging tasks involving locating and following a pipeline, identifying and dropping markers in rectangular bins, "docking" with a station marked with a flashing light, and honing in on an acoustic beacon. Last year, we built a new vehicle, Seawolf III. It is a very exiciting project, and we are working at full throttle to have it ready for this year's competition!

The club began in Fall 2004 with generous support and mentorship from a local robotics R&D company. Our first vehicle, Seawolf I, was a direct result of a year's worth of collaboration on an innovative new AUV design that the company developed for military applications. The students developed software and electronics for the first prototype vehicle, as well as assisted with its construction. Needless to say, it was a tremendously valuable experience for the students involved. A year later, the team went back to the drawing board to develop Seawolf II. Borrowing many of the innovative features of Seawolf I, Seawolf II was lighter, simpler to operate, and has a number of new features aimed at improving reliability. With the help of new recruits from the Mechanical Engineering Department and the Wolfpack Motorsports Team, Seawolf II was completely designed and built by students, with funding provided by our generous sponsors.

Donations

If you wish to donate to the URC, please contact Mathias Welsh (club president) at mawelsh@ncsu.edu. The NC State URC is an offical school-sponsored club, and a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

Looking for flying vehicles? Try the Aerial Robotics Club