Inspiration
While researching sustainability, we noticed a problem. The existence of numerous aquatic robots with the job of picking up trash, yet none were autonomous, requiring more manpower to clean up bodies of water than what was available. We also came across the Amphibious Velox, a robot using undulation to swim efficiently in bodies of water. Immediately we thought of converting this robot into an autonomous trash collector that could cruise through any body of water.
What it does
Our product is designed to collect trash from bodies of water it is deployed in, sort that trash into recyclable and non-recyclable material, and finally return back to a marked drop off site to unload this trash once full.
Challenges we ran into
Some challenges we ran into while designing this product included trying to properly architect mechanical solutions for the requirements we imposed on the product, trying to reduce the complexity of software used in the robot, and piece together our robot in the most efficient way possible.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are proud to have come up with an accurate cost for our product as well as a strong business model. We are also proud to have been able to architect mechanical solutions to almost all cases we wanted the robot to succeed in.
What we learned
We learned just how difficult the design process in. It takes a plethora of patience, innovation, and creativity to design something that operates very efficiently. We also learned more about water pollution around the world and how huge of a problem it has grown into.
What's next for Amphibious Vehicle
Our next steps for the Amphibious Vehicle are to start setting up a machine learning model for the trash sorting portion, and train it. We would do this while building an initial prototype of the robot.
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.