Introduction

As as the tides ebb and flow so do my posts.

For the last 6 months I have been designing, sourcing parts for, and building an underwater “Remotely Operated Vehicle” (ROV). It started from a simple thought, “what should I do with my Raspberry Pi zero?” and turned into a multi-month, $400 expenditure that has taught me much about electronics and various kinds of fabrication.

Why an underwater ROV? Well, I live near the Pacific Ocean and spent 2 years writing control software for a competitive Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) team. Where an ROV needs a human controller (usually through a joystick) an AUV is fully autonomous and has no line going to shore or to a ship. It makes decisions “by itself”.

The ROV I am currently building has AUV capabilities but I have not written the software for it just yet. I plan to in the future.

I plan to chronicle my ROV’s construction and this is the first of a 2-part series on it.

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