Underwater Drones: Robosub 2017 Winning Robots
International competitions in autonomous underwater vehicles RoboSub have been held since 1998 (based on the Center for Space and Naval Systems, USA).
Russian teams from Vladivostok (FEFU and Moscow State University named after Nevelsky) have won prizes many times.
Previous publications:
Today is a review of the 2017 winning vehicles with some comments from our participants.
1st place: Cornell University, USA.
2nd place: Far Eastern University / Institute for Marine Technology Problems, Russia.
3rd place: National University of Singapore, Singapore.
4th place: Harbin Engineering University, China.
5th place: Georgia Institute of Technology, USA.
Artemis and Apollo from Cornell University.
Site
Facebook
Publication in the competition magazine (PDF)
Team:
Apparatus:
Large image
Video:
Maksim Sporyshev, member of the Russian national team:
Cornell is the coolest team in the history of this competition. It often happens that steep teams “end” when their best teams are released, but this one has continuity.
They won 5 years in a row, at a time when our team was just becoming. It was amazing to see how they did not reach the final in the previous couple of years.
They have a very high quality and professional approach. The team consists of about 30 people, there is a large team of managers who organize various events, looking for sponsors, and PR.
A cool team of creative and talented engineers who have been preparing the device all year, testing it, developing new designers.
We know some graduates from there (some of them are even Russians), they work in very steep places (Qualcomm, Microsoft, etc.)
Programmers there also come up with a lot of interesting pieces and, most importantly, work throughout the year.
They even make videos with the quality of commercials.
I remember in 2014, the deadline a month before the competition, all the teams posted video clips, we then, as usual, just started testing everything in the pool. And on the Cornell video, they performed all the tasks for epic music, told how cool they were preparing and that they were “more than ready for Robosub”.
Of course, that year they arrived and every day they fulfilled all or almost all the tasks and won with a huge margin.
Their team comes to the competition not at full strength, too many of them. They go every day in different team t-shirts, with a bunch of sponsors on their backs. Among their sponsors, it seems, there was even a Domino's Pizza pizzeria, and it seems there was a dude on their team who was in charge of pizza and muffins every day.
In general, this team is absolutely cool. Only BumbleBee had a similar level.
However, every year, BumbleBee had some completely stupid problems mostly with equipment (a sonar burned, a compass died, the engine died), because of which they failed to perform in the final. Although at many trainings they performed almost everything.
Cornell didn’t have such a thing, but even the circumstances prevented them not only from winning, but also from reaching the final. In particular, with sunny weather at 12-14 o'clock in the afternoon still no one can fight. Even this summer, Cornell had the worst performance of the week at the finals, when for the first time this very week the scorching sun came out.
It all ended with the fact that we were separated from them about 500 points. We could accidentally bump into a buoy of the desired color to get ahead of them =). It would turn out, of course, very unfair to them and their level of training.
Junior from Vladivostok, Far Eastern Federal University
Site
Publication in the competition magazine (PDF)
The device weighs 28 kg, can dive no more than 10 meters and is designed exclusively for participation in competitions and experiments.
Team:
The post-graduate student of the School of Engineering Maxim Sporyshev became the captain of the Vladivostok team, students of the School of Natural Sciences Alexander Zhikhareva and Andrei Makhlyarchuk, IS students Vladislav Bobrov and Ivan Chemezov, IPMT graduate student Grigori Eliseenko, IPMT research workers Sergey Kulik and Alexander Pavin became the team.
Video:
Bumblebee or Bumblebee from the National University of Singapore
Site
Facebook
Publication in the competition magazine (PDF)
Team:
Video:
Maksim Sporyshev, member of the Russian national team:
We have a rather long history of relations with the Singapore Bumblebee team, our various old participants could tell a lot of stories, sorry we don’t write them down.
The first competition in which we participated was the Singapore AUV Challenge 2013 in March
That year they were held for the first time. The tasks were rather trivial, it was necessary to be able to walk along the black stripe on the bottom and go through the gate, knock down the ball, float in the right place. There were no acoustic tasks, all objects stood along the black strip.
I was then responsible for seeing and recognizing this band. None of the students could write software for the device, so what was happening in our code then was a huge source of tales and tutorials on how not to do everything.
When we went to the competitions, only the sight worked stably, probably. The device needed to debug even the engine control module and the motion module; this was done even by dragging the device on the hands in the hotel, gluing the black stripe to the floor. Well, or in the paddling pool.
The University of Singapore also had a young team of students that year that was experiencing the same problems, so we probably became friends. Even in spite of the fact that many of us were speaking English at the average.
Friendship was promoted by a girl named Grace Chia , who was an engineer from the Bumblebee team and at the same time worked in public relations.
She could have found a common language with anyone, even if you didn't speak English at all. Totally unique person. Thanks to her, our teams started hanging out at those competitions. The guys from Bumblebee showed us the city, called on their campus and so on.
Both our teams waited for Robosub 2013 the same summer and we all had to prepare for it. In general, we have a lot in common.
At Singapur, we then won by completing all the tasks. It seems the rest had problems with it. Although the device at Bumblebee was impressive and had more potential than ours. We were also very surprised that their team has a huge number of sponsors who provided them with various devices, sensors and other details for the device. They, in turn, were surprised at our approach to the construction of underwater vehicles.
After those Singapore competitions, we often hung out with the Bumblebee team every time we saw them. And we met twice a year.
Grace Chia even arrived in Vladivostok in August for a whole month in 2013.
For the time that we know each other, we all changed composition. Every year their team is replenished with freshmen. Many team members leave pretty quickly. But they have several guys who have been on the team for a long time and we know them well. Some are not in the team, but follow its progress. This is Grace Chia, TC, Eng Wei, Alex John, Hoang, Tey Kee Yeow.
There were many stories when the guys from Singapore really helped us out when everything was breaking.
We broke down computers, urgently needed a monitor, keyboard, cable, something else on the weekend, when there was not very much time for tests, and almost all stores did not work.
Grace from somewhere got us all in general, despite the fact that we are their main competitors in their competitions.
The BumbleBee team are our main friends among all the others :).
Yellow submarine from Harbin Engineering University (China)
Publication in the competition magazine (PDF)
Team:
Video:
Maxim Sporyshev:
The Chinese of their Harbin with their yellow stuff go since 2012. If you look at their team videos, you will notice that they have a HUGE pool for training in China. But for some reason they still do not fulfill all the tasks even in such conditions.
Ivan Chemezov: Actually, I thought that we had an apparatus on crutches. But no, there are still large gates. I understand perfectly why hydroacoustics is not working well for them. The essence of their electronics unit - long tangled wires. Guides and stuff. Batteries without case, all on clamps.
But the Indians killed me, they put the router in the breakfast box and took it behind the device (the device was under water, the connection was above water). They collected their apparatus with a hammer! We are neat, there are connectors because we use glass. And they are straight on the body figat.
Georgia Institute of Technology (USA)
Site
Publication in the competition magazine (PDF)
Video:
Best PR
San diego city robotics
Site
Publication in the competition magazine (PDF)
Video:
Best New Entry
Team Rumarino, Mayaguez, Puerto Rico
Site
Facebook
Publication in the competition magazine (PDF)
Video:
Sportsmanship award
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, USA
Video:
Best Presentation
McGill Robotics, Montréal, Quebec, Canada
Site
Facebook
Publication in the competition magazine (PDF)
Video:
Moscow State University Nevelsky
The team of the Maritime University took the 4th place in RoboSub in 2016.
Publication in the competition magazine (PDF)
Video:
Team:
The team includes: Vladislav Bolotov (graduate student), Igor Sukhov (graduate student), Alexander Esin (graduate student), Vadim Sorin (student). Mentors were employees of the Marine Robotic Systems Sector: Sergey Moon, Igor Pushkarev, Andrey Kushnerik, Nikolai Sergeenko and Denis Mikhailov.
Girls:
Texas A & M University
Site
Facebook
Publication in the competition magazine (PDF)
Video:
Ivan Chemezov: The girls from Texas are probably the only foreign team I would like to meet more or less. At least they have similarities with the bathyscaphe.
Maxim Sporyshev:
San Diego City Robotics - very funny (I remember only a couple of guys from their composition, of a certain year). There is a very funny dude in this video:
They met our guys in the smoking room. In those years everything was pretty tight (2014-2015). Every time when we told them about some of our complex problems with some mission tasks, or that something just broke, the guys in the smoking room shouted in the spirit of “VOOOOOOU. DIFFERENT, THERE YOU DIDN'T HAPPEN. THIS IS SUSTAINABLE! ”
Russian teams from Vladivostok (FEFU and Moscow State University named after Nevelsky) have won prizes many times.
Previous publications:
- Underwater drones: from the search for thermonuclear bombs to student competitions .
- Underwater drones: The rules of student competitions Robosub 2017 .
Today is a review of the 2017 winning vehicles with some comments from our participants.
1st place: Cornell University, USA.
2nd place: Far Eastern University / Institute for Marine Technology Problems, Russia.
3rd place: National University of Singapore, Singapore.
4th place: Harbin Engineering University, China.
5th place: Georgia Institute of Technology, USA.
First place
Artemis and Apollo from Cornell University.
Site
Publication in the competition magazine (PDF)
Team:
Apparatus:
Large image
Video:
Maksim Sporyshev, member of the Russian national team:
Cornell is the coolest team in the history of this competition. It often happens that steep teams “end” when their best teams are released, but this one has continuity.
They won 5 years in a row, at a time when our team was just becoming. It was amazing to see how they did not reach the final in the previous couple of years.
They have a very high quality and professional approach. The team consists of about 30 people, there is a large team of managers who organize various events, looking for sponsors, and PR.
A cool team of creative and talented engineers who have been preparing the device all year, testing it, developing new designers.
We know some graduates from there (some of them are even Russians), they work in very steep places (Qualcomm, Microsoft, etc.)
Programmers there also come up with a lot of interesting pieces and, most importantly, work throughout the year.
They even make videos with the quality of commercials.
I remember in 2014, the deadline a month before the competition, all the teams posted video clips, we then, as usual, just started testing everything in the pool. And on the Cornell video, they performed all the tasks for epic music, told how cool they were preparing and that they were “more than ready for Robosub”.
Of course, that year they arrived and every day they fulfilled all or almost all the tasks and won with a huge margin.
Their team comes to the competition not at full strength, too many of them. They go every day in different team t-shirts, with a bunch of sponsors on their backs. Among their sponsors, it seems, there was even a Domino's Pizza pizzeria, and it seems there was a dude on their team who was in charge of pizza and muffins every day.
In general, this team is absolutely cool. Only BumbleBee had a similar level.
However, every year, BumbleBee had some completely stupid problems mostly with equipment (a sonar burned, a compass died, the engine died), because of which they failed to perform in the final. Although at many trainings they performed almost everything.
Cornell didn’t have such a thing, but even the circumstances prevented them not only from winning, but also from reaching the final. In particular, with sunny weather at 12-14 o'clock in the afternoon still no one can fight. Even this summer, Cornell had the worst performance of the week at the finals, when for the first time this very week the scorching sun came out.
It all ended with the fact that we were separated from them about 500 points. We could accidentally bump into a buoy of the desired color to get ahead of them =). It would turn out, of course, very unfair to them and their level of training.
Second place
Junior from Vladivostok, Far Eastern Federal University
Site
Publication in the competition magazine (PDF)
The device weighs 28 kg, can dive no more than 10 meters and is designed exclusively for participation in competitions and experiments.
Team:
The post-graduate student of the School of Engineering Maxim Sporyshev became the captain of the Vladivostok team, students of the School of Natural Sciences Alexander Zhikhareva and Andrei Makhlyarchuk, IS students Vladislav Bobrov and Ivan Chemezov, IPMT graduate student Grigori Eliseenko, IPMT research workers Sergey Kulik and Alexander Pavin became the team.
Video:
Many pictures of our
Photos of 2014.
Third place
Bumblebee or Bumblebee from the National University of Singapore
Site
Publication in the competition magazine (PDF)
Team:
Video:
Maksim Sporyshev, member of the Russian national team:
We have a rather long history of relations with the Singapore Bumblebee team, our various old participants could tell a lot of stories, sorry we don’t write them down.
The first competition in which we participated was the Singapore AUV Challenge 2013 in March
That year they were held for the first time. The tasks were rather trivial, it was necessary to be able to walk along the black stripe on the bottom and go through the gate, knock down the ball, float in the right place. There were no acoustic tasks, all objects stood along the black strip.
I was then responsible for seeing and recognizing this band. None of the students could write software for the device, so what was happening in our code then was a huge source of tales and tutorials on how not to do everything.
When we went to the competitions, only the sight worked stably, probably. The device needed to debug even the engine control module and the motion module; this was done even by dragging the device on the hands in the hotel, gluing the black stripe to the floor. Well, or in the paddling pool.
The University of Singapore also had a young team of students that year that was experiencing the same problems, so we probably became friends. Even in spite of the fact that many of us were speaking English at the average.
Friendship was promoted by a girl named Grace Chia , who was an engineer from the Bumblebee team and at the same time worked in public relations.
She could have found a common language with anyone, even if you didn't speak English at all. Totally unique person. Thanks to her, our teams started hanging out at those competitions. The guys from Bumblebee showed us the city, called on their campus and so on.
Both our teams waited for Robosub 2013 the same summer and we all had to prepare for it. In general, we have a lot in common.
At Singapur, we then won by completing all the tasks. It seems the rest had problems with it. Although the device at Bumblebee was impressive and had more potential than ours. We were also very surprised that their team has a huge number of sponsors who provided them with various devices, sensors and other details for the device. They, in turn, were surprised at our approach to the construction of underwater vehicles.
After those Singapore competitions, we often hung out with the Bumblebee team every time we saw them. And we met twice a year.
Grace Chia even arrived in Vladivostok in August for a whole month in 2013.
For the time that we know each other, we all changed composition. Every year their team is replenished with freshmen. Many team members leave pretty quickly. But they have several guys who have been on the team for a long time and we know them well. Some are not in the team, but follow its progress. This is Grace Chia, TC, Eng Wei, Alex John, Hoang, Tey Kee Yeow.
There were many stories when the guys from Singapore really helped us out when everything was breaking.
We broke down computers, urgently needed a monitor, keyboard, cable, something else on the weekend, when there was not very much time for tests, and almost all stores did not work.
Grace from somewhere got us all in general, despite the fact that we are their main competitors in their competitions.
The BumbleBee team are our main friends among all the others :).
Fourth place
Yellow submarine from Harbin Engineering University (China)
Publication in the competition magazine (PDF)
Team:
Video:
Maxim Sporyshev:
The Chinese of their Harbin with their yellow stuff go since 2012. If you look at their team videos, you will notice that they have a HUGE pool for training in China. But for some reason they still do not fulfill all the tasks even in such conditions.
Ivan Chemezov: Actually, I thought that we had an apparatus on crutches. But no, there are still large gates. I understand perfectly why hydroacoustics is not working well for them. The essence of their electronics unit - long tangled wires. Guides and stuff. Batteries without case, all on clamps.
But the Indians killed me, they put the router in the breakfast box and took it behind the device (the device was under water, the connection was above water). They collected their apparatus with a hammer! We are neat, there are connectors because we use glass. And they are straight on the body figat.
Fifth place
Georgia Institute of Technology (USA)
Site
Publication in the competition magazine (PDF)
Video:
Special prizes
Best PR
San diego city robotics
Site
Publication in the competition magazine (PDF)
Video:
Best New Entry
Team Rumarino, Mayaguez, Puerto Rico
Site
Publication in the competition magazine (PDF)
Video:
Sportsmanship award
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, USA
Video:
Best Presentation
McGill Robotics, Montréal, Quebec, Canada
Site
Publication in the competition magazine (PDF)
Video:
Another team from Vladivostok
Moscow State University Nevelsky
The team of the Maritime University took the 4th place in RoboSub in 2016.
Publication in the competition magazine (PDF)
Video:
Team:
The team includes: Vladislav Bolotov (graduate student), Igor Sukhov (graduate student), Alexander Esin (graduate student), Vadim Sorin (student). Mentors were employees of the Marine Robotic Systems Sector: Sergey Moon, Igor Pushkarev, Andrey Kushnerik, Nikolai Sergeenko and Denis Mikhailov.
PS
Girls:
Texas A & M University
Site
Publication in the competition magazine (PDF)
Video:
Ivan Chemezov: The girls from Texas are probably the only foreign team I would like to meet more or less. At least they have similarities with the bathyscaphe.
More stories about teams
Maxim Sporyshev:
San Diego City Robotics - very funny (I remember only a couple of guys from their composition, of a certain year). There is a very funny dude in this video:
They met our guys in the smoking room. In those years everything was pretty tight (2014-2015). Every time when we told them about some of our complex problems with some mission tasks, or that something just broke, the guys in the smoking room shouted in the spirit of “VOOOOOOU. DIFFERENT, THERE YOU DIDN'T HAPPEN. THIS IS SUSTAINABLE! ”
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