Aquanav prototyping

During 2022-2023, Sooner Competitive Robotics worked to develop a prototype boat design for Robonations Roboboat competition. To get out of the gate we needed to test hull design and aquatic thrust, before we could move on to the myriad of software challenges that the competition includes. I designed and 3D printed the propellers in our first prototype design.

CAD Modeling

The most interesting modeling challenge of this project was creating the 3d spline like shape of the propeller blades. I used the a thickened surface between the projections of two distant coils to accomplish this. It was satisfying to get that dipped curve effect, which snaps to the propeller body at the top and bottom, especially over a cylindrical basis.

Propeller testing

Mostly, these propellers showed us that our electromechanical system worked. That through varying the power signal to our motors, we could reliably create different amounts of thrust for a boat on our scale. Eventually we moved away from the small, 3d printed prototypes, to larger proprietary designs and larger hulls. We could confidently move forward after our prototyping.