WSU, UI students dive into submarine competition

robo-sub-club-logoPULLMAN, Wash. – Engineering students from Washington State University and University of Idaho will put their robotics ingenuity to the test July 20-26 in an international submarine robot contest.

The competition, called RoboSub, is held annually in San Diego. Co-sponsored by the U.S. Office of Naval Research, it aims to advance development of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) by calling on the talents of student engineers.

SubRobot-web
Submarine robot in the engineering lab.

Teams must create an AUV and run it through an obstacle course. Obstacles range from the simple, like passing through a start gate, to the extremely complex, like identifying a sonar sound from a pinger, picking up an object adjacent to the pinger and bringing it to the surface.

The RoboSub Club of the Palouse (http://robosub.eecs.wsu.edu/) is competing in its fourth RoboSub competition (http://www.auvsifoundation
.org/foundation/competitions
/robosub/
).

“RoboSub Club of the Palouse allows students to have a project they can continue year after year,” said Haily Holt, former club president and recent WSU graduate in electrical engineering.

Competition participants will come from universities and high schools in Egypt, Russia, Singapore, India, China, Canada, Turkey, Thailand, Japan, Sweden and Pakistan.

“We get to meet engineers from all around the world,” Holt said. She added that this diversity gives a good perspective on different ways to solve problems.

View the Robosub Club of the Palouse’s competition video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cfNbFVgWp8&feature=youtu.be.

 

Contacts:
Matthew Taylor, RoboSub Club of the Palouse advisor, 509-335-6457, taylorm@eecs.wsu.edu
Michelle Fredrickson, WSU Voiland College of Engineering & Architecture communications, 509-335-3716, m.fredrickson@wsu.edu