Atlantis Rising: Blown fuse bursts South End robotics team’s chances at international contest

Published 9:00 am Monday, May 21, 2012

FREELAND — Many hands make light work, and a PVC pipe frame with a remote motor helps, too.

Those three ideas helped a group of five South Whidbey kids build a remotely operated vehicle for the Marine Advanced Technology Education’s ROV competition May 12 in Federal Way. Out of 15 teams, Team Atlantis, Inc. finished eighth.

“That’s basically without being able to compete in the pool,” said team mentor Ashley McConnaughey. “Based on what they know they absolutely would’ve placed in the top three.”

Kaj Olson, Chris Wilson, Steven Wilson, Hannah McConnaughey and Haley McConnaughey formed Team Atlantic, Inc. to build a ROV, which the team calls a “bot,” capable of maneuvering around simulated shipwrecks, lifting canisters and siphoning oil.

At the Pacific Northwest regional, Team Atlantis was sunk by a blown fuse during its second mission. The lost points may have cost the group its trip to Florida for the international competition. Nonetheless, not completing one of the major scoring categories is costly.

“If we had perfectly completed our second mission, we would have gotten 175 points and that would’ve taken us to top five, or hopefully top two,” said Hannah McConnaughey, the team’s communications director.

Ashley McConnaughey, who, in addition to being a mentor, is two of the team members’ mom, attended the competition at the Weyerhaeuser Aquatic Center last Saturday. She watched helplessly as the team tried to salvage the mission with a blown fuse.

“They completely rallied, ditched the mentors and figured everything out,” McConnaughey said.

“They were highly disappointed.”

There was a silver lining to the disappointing finish, however. The team’s poster won first place. A matte black poster board was covered with the team’s mission statement, an abstract, company information about the team, design specifications, a history of creating the ROV and the competition’s theme of “Shipwrecks,” and why it matters (oil in the oceans from  shipwrecks is a bad thing, such as the Exxon Valdez and the Deepwater  Horizon oil spills). A large, robotic octopus on the masthead, along with the bot’s name, ROV Botnica, helped the poster be a head turner.

“It was really funny actually, people were walking by and taking pictures with their cameras and their phones,” said Hannah, 15.

“The judges were impressed with how professional it was. The black poster really made it stand out.”

The blown fuse seized the motor and caused steering problems. Loss of steering was a big hit because the bot needed precision piloting to puncture an inch-wide nozzle filled with petroleum jelly to extract the simulated oil, actually a dye-colored high saline solution. Removing the solution was difficult enough with perfectly performing propellers. Once Kaj, the pilot, lost some steering capability, the task became unruly and the team focused on trying to solve the problem at hand, rather than the mission.

“We had a great set up and everything, then all of a sudden, we couldn’t turn,” Hannah said.

The team faced a handful of issues two days prior to the regional contest at its training facility, Island Athletic Club. Buoyancy proved elusive during the first trial, which led Chris to add temporary floatation tubes to the top of the frame. Then a wire was separated from its connector, which joined another wire to one of the propellers.

“This is one of the worst problems we could have this close to the competition,” Kaj said. “Better now than at regionals.”

With a screen, a makeshift control board (particle board painted periwinkle blue), two “cannibalized” joysticks for steering, piano wires running into protective tubing and a large PVC frame, the Atlantis crew drew a crowd at the pool. Young and not-so-young alike asked the child engineers what they were working on.

Team Atlantis was aided by a slew of supporters, including Grey Chicken DesignWorks for graphic design, Island Athletic Club for the donation of pool time, Ace Hardware, Boomerang Printing, Captn Blynd for 3D printing of the manipulator, Casey’s Crafts for the poster board, Island Auto Supply, Les Schwab Tires, Nichols Brothers Boat Builders, Skagit Farmers Supply, Whidbey Telecom and Whidbey Island Dive Center.