Streamline

Inspiration

Back in 2021, a collaborative effort known as #TeamSeas raised 30 million dollars for the purpose of removing 30 million pounds of trash from the world's oceans. Interested in seeing how this was actually going to happen, I looked into the company slated to do the physical heavy lifting of plastic out of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Fast forward to RoboTech 2022, where the core idea is sustainability, and I figured, nothing is more sustainable than caring for the future health of our oceans and rivers. So my teammate and I decided to put our heads together for the good of neither money nor fame, but the fishes—just like our non-profit, The Ocean Cleanup, does everyday—and support them in their endeavor to protect the oceans of the future. To check out the original #TeamSeas and The Ocean Cleanup collaboration video, check out this link.

What it does

While The Ocean Cleanup already has several units deployed, they openly admit to a few problems with their current designs on their website, such as jamming due to congestion, and as of right now, their sole goal is cleaning up trash, as they fully aligned their interests with #TeamSeas We believe that we can implement a few clever designs that solve some of the problems that they are currently facing, specifically the clogging of their garbage collection machines due to congestion, as well as implement our own system as an add-on to their Interceptor that helps them soak up oil from these heavily polluted rivers on top of collecting trash.

How we built it

Since a lot of our designs are based on existing machinery, we spent a large portion of our allotted time analyzing the function and potential problems of The Ocean Cleanup's fleet of aquatic vehicles (the most notable of which is called the Interceptor), and using SolidWorks to model these machines as well as any changes or additional components we would like to implement. We designed our enhanced trash recovery system on account of the Interceptor clogging up whenever heavy rains wash increased levels of waste downstream. We also came up with an oil collection and separation method that can skim the surface of the water and collect most floating oil and direct it into a chamber where the oil and river water can be further separated.

Challenges we ran into

Since a lot of our original ideas were an addendum to the Interceptor's base design, we first had to roughly model the actual Interceptor (and all of its components) in SolidWorks. Only then could we show how our components are integrated into the overall design. The sheer amount of computer aided design we had to do for the visualizations of this project to come to life ended up proving very challenging, but in the end, we pushed through it, and were able to fully render our final products.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

It's not every day you find a direct application of something you learn in lecture, but when you do, it feels glorious. We read a report that during a really heavy storm, strong river currents actually ended up bending and damaging an anchor used to secure the Interceptor ship in place. In our improved design, we employed the concept of dual shear (taught in Deformable Bodies) in order to significantly strengthen the anchor. Needless to say, we were quite proud.

What we learned

The CEO and founder of The Ocean Cleanup is a man named Boyan Slat. He recounts being out on a diving trip once, when he saw more plastic bags floating around than fish. Horrified but in equal amounts inspired, he spent a few years in high school researching the 5 great garbage patches around the globe, and gave a TED talk about his findings. When this TED went viral and people responded with their support, Slat dropped out of college to pursue this idea full time. Through this story, if nothing else, we learned that change will come, but only if you are willing to make it happen.

What's next for Streamline

While working on this project, we honestly felt like we were part of the team at The Ocean Cleanup. We did in depth research on all of their equipment, brainstormed alternatives, documented possible improvements, and implemented the most impactful changes we could devise—all in the spirit of a non-profit—for free! We hope that we can continue finding improvements for aquatic reclamation projects, no matter how big or small. And who knows, maybe, just maybe, our work will be noticed and recognized by The Ocean Cleanup :)

Built With

• google-docs
• powerpoint
• solidworks
• youtube