Building a small submarine or ROV is something I’ve been meaning to do for years. I finally got around to throwing some parts together, and it turned out surprisingly functional. There are still a few kinks to iron out, but this contraption of PVC pipe and surplus electronics actually works!
The outer frame is made of PVC pipe, holding a central electronics box with the navigation camera and thrusters. The navcam feeds live video back to a screen on the control panel (when it’s working!). For better quality video, there’s a GoPro mount on the front. Lights on the front let the cameras see better underwater or in dark caves (where I’ve mostly been testing it so far).
The first cave test (above) was admittedly pretty low-stakes. The water in this cave is all pretty shallow and if I got the thing stuck I could have just waded out to retrieve it. However, I wanted to verify operations for a slightly more challenging cave (below).
I’m hoping to use this in a few more places (maybe when the weather is warmer and the thrusters don’t ice up!). I’ll probably also fix a few of the broken bits and adjust things further, so look for more on the ROV project in the future!
Saveitforparts 