This week the team received the feedback for our PDR Report…
Luckily, we spent the entire week fixing and revising it ! It now looks much better with many more references, explanations, and pictures (yay!). Word is very troublesome and due to syncing errors it took almost an hour to fix just the footers, but somehow we did it and we’ve just barely hit 6k words too! (6k words, week 7…hm…)
On the electrical side of things, we finally have a PCB design for the propulsion control board (shown below), big thanks to Nino Rafael
Hopefully with all of these changes our PDR Report is in-depth and beautiful, ready to be approved by IPPD and Professor Mohseni.
We just wrapped up our Preliminary Design Review (PDR), and we’re proud to say it went really well. Weeks of brainstorming, sketching, and late night edits came together into a presentation we felt confident delivering. Here’s a look at what worked, and a well earned shout-out to one of our teammates.
Concept generation was the heart of our PDR. We explored a wide range of ideas and weighed each against our requirements, so we could clearly explain why our final concept was the right choice.
A big highlight was Lucas’s 3D CAD model of the Vortex Ring Thruster . It turned our concept into something the reviewers could actually see, making our design easy to understand and showing how far along we already are.
This litereature Review Slide covers how squid pulsed-jet propulsion inspired the vortex ring thruster and how fish lateral lines inspired your lateral sensors.
A shout out to Luoise
Our groupmate Luoise had an emergency that kept her from attending in person. Instead of sitting it out, she joined remotely and presented her part right alongside us, and the presentation still came across as one complete team effort. Thank you, Luois. We couldn’t have done it without you.
What’s next
With the PDR behind us, we’re taking the feedback we received and moving into detailed prototype design. We’re carrying the same momentum and teamwork into the next phase, and we’ll share more as the project develops.
Instead of the whole shebang (Sub), we’re now laser focused on two key components: the lateral line sensors ( fish sensors ) and the vortex ring thrusters (the cool propulsion system)
This week’s project focused on refining core submarine functionalities. The mechanical team is redesigning the vortex ring thruster for compactness and modularity, simplifying installation. Simultaneously, the electrical team is developing the power and control system for this thruster, alongside redesigning the submarine’s microcontroller and integrating the lateral line sensors. The Mohsubis (the team ) are trying to be synergistic, with mechanical improvements informing electrical design and vice versa for an efficient system design.
The Image below shows the Mohsubis looking at materials for designing the Thursters)
What’s Next?
We still have some crucial decisions to make, mainly finalizing the thruster design and deciding on materials for the prototype vs. the final metal version. Next week, We are diving back into refining the power supply and the MCU designs, making sure they’re ready to play nicely with those awesome thrusters and sensors.
Stay tuned for more updates from the depths (or, you know, the lab)!
The Mohsubis ( yes, thats our unofficial team name ) presented our product review for our AUV submarine. Before the big moment, we rehearsed in the IPPD Lab a few times to make sure we actually knew what we were talking about and, more importantly, knew when it was our turn to talk. We practiced going through the slides, fixing awkward transitions, and trying not to sound like we were reading directly from the screen.
One thing we definitely learned is that our presentation needs more pictures and models. We can talk about the submarine all day, but at some point people probably want to actually SEE the thing. Unfortunately, we had one major problem: we can’t exactly bring submarine parts with us like we’re carrying show and tell items from elementary school.
Sagan also put her elevator pitch workshop skills to work and opened the presentation with an elevator pitch for our submarine. It was a great way to grab everyone’s attention before we started throwing technical information at them. Basically, she had to convince everyone that our submarine was cool before we started explaining why it was cool.
Next week we’re presenting our final presentation to the big boss and some other bosses . Hopefully we don’t fumble it and actually convince them that we can build this thing…
There are two things in IPPD that habitually leave me lost and confused: acronyms and nested files.
Good morning, good evening, and good night, Week 4!
We got project documentation! After incessantly bugging Dr. Mohseni, he finally graced Team SQUID with digital tools, reports, schematics, CAD parts, assemblies, images, spreadsheets, data, and all sorts of things that would make you think Santa came early. Unfortunately, we don’t exactly know where everything is in the folder hierarchy, and neither does Mohseni. Figuring out the extent of what we have and what we’re missing has become a big ongoing project. Nevertheless, the team is excited to get to work designing a submarine.
Hierarchical representation of one of three folders in our archive of project files
Lucas says he feels “optimistic” (in a less than optimistic tone) as we prepare our preliminary design review presentation. We’re doing our best, but it’s not great when I have to double check what PDR stands for every time I see the abbreviation. The PDR’s List of Terms and Abbreviations was an unexpected but welcome part of the report. On top of IPPD’s copious acronyms (TPM, PDS, et al.), sifting through research to put together a literature review unearthed its own slew, which I unfortunately felt compelled to use since I didn’t feel like writing out “autonomous underwater vehicle” each time I wanted to talk about a prototype.
The slog is truly a slog, but we’re slogging forward. Next week, check in for a PDR response from the boss, and keep an open eye for developments from the team.
Sagan Giardino is a 3rd year Electrical Engineering student at the University of Florida with a background in microelectronics, analog physical layout, and embedded systems. Sagan is the Analog Layout Design Team Lead for the UF Silicon Club, mentoring underclassmen in IC design using Cadence Virtuoso.
Nino Rafael Forrey
Nino Rafael Forrey is a 3rd year Electrical Engineering student at the University of Florida. He has developed his electronic sensing systems through developing environmental and biosensing devices. He specializes in signal acquisition, filtering, and processing.
Lucas Salas
Lucas Salas is a 4th year Mechanical Engineering student with experience in additive manufacturing, mechanical design, and engineering leadership. He has applied his interest in metal additive manufacturing through undergraduate L-PBF research at UF and an additive manufacturing product engineering internship with Oerlikon AM, while also developing his leadership experience as captain of GATR VEX Robotics.
Louise Gong-McGovern
Louise Gong-McGovern is a 4th year Biological Engineering student at the University of Florida. As Design Team Captain of Generational Relief in Prosthetics, she designed and 3D-printed prosthetic hands and adapted more than 30 toys for children with upper-limb disabilities. Through summer programs, she has studied bioprinting and metal additive manufacturing at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, conducted protein nanomaterials research there, and investigated plasma surface treatment of polymers at Hochschule Osnabrück in Germany.
Isaac Tichy
Isaac Tichy is a 4th year Materials Science & Engineering student at the University of Florida. He comes from a background of investigational and translational nanomedical research. He specializes in rapid prototyping, process design, and optimization of experimental throughput.
Lauren Willman
Lauren Willman is a 3rd year Mechanical Engineering student with experience in automotive engineering as a suspension engineer in Solar Gators. Through this experience, she has developed skills in design, manufacturing, and testing. She also has experience in the Neuromechanics of Mobility Lab at UF developing experiments and performing data analysis.
David Bickram
David Bickram is a 4th year Computer Engineering student at the University of Florida. He has developed his skills in embedded systems and real time signal detection and processing. He specializes in sensor integration and device control firmware.
This week, Team S.Q.U.I.D. took an exciting step forward in defining our project and figuring out exactly what we want to accomplish. We created our Product Design Specification (PDS), which helped us start turning the broad idea of our project into specific goals and requirements. In the PDS, we defined our team member roles, created an overview of the project, identified our stakeholders, established project requirements and specific targets, and discussed our constraints and assumptions. We also put together a list of questions that we will continue to work through as we learn more about the submarine and the previous team’s work.
After completing our PDS, we had the opportunity to review it with both our coach and liaison. They provided us with helpful feedback and suggestions for improving the document and making sure our requirements and goals are clear and realistic. Their feedback will help us as we continue developing our project and begin making more detailed design decisions.
We also had a separate meeting with Dr. Mohseni to discuss the CAD files, electronic schematics, and other documentation we need from the previous iteration of the submarine. Getting access to these files will be a huge step for our team! Rather than starting from scratch, we will be able to study what has already been designed, understand how the previous submarine worked, and identify areas where we can make improvements. We are excited to dig into the previous design and see what we can learn from the work that has already been done.
Overall, this week helped us establish a strong foundation for the project. We are beginning to move from the planning and research stage toward actually understanding the existing submarine and thinking about how we can improve it. Our goal for next week is to dive into the previous submarine’s documentation and CAD files, learn as much as we can about the existing design, and start identifying potential areas for improvement. We are excited to finally get into the technical side of the project and see where we can take Team S.Q.U.I.D. from here!
This week, we met with our coach (Coach Larry) and our Liaison (Dr.Mohseni). During our liaison meeting, we were shown around Dr. Mohseni’s expansive lab and got to see the massive tank where we will be testing our prototype. With our first tasks in hand, we’re all excited to begin working on this challenging project.
From left to right: Isaac, Louise, Sagan, Coach Larry, Lucas, Lauren, Nino
We also settled on our logo (pictured on the left)! Being a primarily squid-inspired submarine, we decided to stick close to home with our name and go for an acronym! It stands for Superior Quality Underwater Intelligent Drone (S.Q.U.I.D.). Our logo features a squid riding a submarine, showing how we intend to merge the two concepts. The signature fish-inspired lateral-line differential pressure sensors appear as squares on the hull, while the vortex thrusters appear as a hole.
Our goal for next week is to solidify our understanding of the underlying technologies involved in the submarine and understand what electronic improvements can be made.
We will be working on creating an autonomous submarine that uses movements inspired primarily by squids with Professor Kamran Mohseni from the University of Florida. As we progress through this project, we will use this blog to document our journey and various milestones.
This week, we focused on assigning the team roles and brainstorming various team name/logo ideas. Our official team name is “S.Q.U.I.D – Stupendously Quite Underwater Invention Doohickey”, and the decided logo has a rough sketch design, but will be finalized within the coming week.
The 2 leftmost images were created by Sagan, and the right most image was created by Isaac. The final decided logo is the leftmost design.
Our team roles have been assigned as follows:
Team Leader: Lucas Salas
Meeting Facilitator: Isaac Tichy
Meeting Scribe: Nino Forrey
Research Librarian: David Bickram
Finance and Travel: Lauren Willman
Timekeeper: Louise Gong-McGovern
Web/blog Editor: Sagan Giardino
Next week, we plan to examine the previous iterations of the submarine, finalize the logo design, and meet with our sponsor (Dr. Mohseni) to gain a further understanding of the project and its technical expectations moving forward.
