The idea...

The concept of the project is similar to that of robotic water-retrieval vehicles. These vehicles travel across the desert in search for water. When found, the vehicle pumps the water into a tank and returns to home base. The benefit of the vehicle is that people do not need to be sent out to find water; the robotic vehicle does all the work. This may be applicable in hazardous situations when outside conditions are not safe or optimal for human search efforts.

Due to our five week time limitation, we simplified our idea to consist of five main steps. Our project will:

• "Sense" for water using an IR emitter detector pair and travel in a straight line until the source is found
• Lower tubing into the water source
• Pump the water into a container located on the vehicle
• Raise the tubing to its resting position
• Retreat to the home base

This is a top view of our final design

Using these five steps as a reference point, The Water Boyz design can be divided into three main subsystems:

• Sensing & vehicle movement
• Lowering & raising of the tubing
• Pumping of the water

The ‘sensing & vehicle movement’ subsystem powers a DC motor to move the vehicle until the sensor detects the water or the home base. The ‘lowering & raising of the tubing’ subsystem powers an RC servo motor to rotate a prescribed amount of degrees which lowers and raises the tubing at the appropriate time. The ‘water pumping’ subsystem pumps the water into the container using a pump.

Our team is comprised of Matt Tanke (Mechanical Engineer), Alex Chin (Electrical Engineer) and Anup Shah (Mechanical Engineer).