Thursday, December 8, 2011

UW Human Powered Submarine Recruitment

The Human Powered Submarine Team is a student run organization that builds, tests and races a human powered submarine. We are looking for some electrical engineers of all class ranks to help develop an electronic control system throughout Winter and Spring quarters.  The system incorporates a lot of controls and some embedded, and power concepts. It is also a great opportunity for anyone who likes diving.

Currently the system is being developed with an Arduino microcontroller and an analog joystick as a controller. The joystick will control servo motors that are attached to 4 control fins in the rear of the submarine. One of our more ambitious goals is to develop a gyro based control system in addition to the analog controls. Basically the goal is to have a gyro sense the tilt of the submarine and automatically correct it's orientation.

Work on the team for an EE can include but not limited to:
-Design and testing of the electronic control systems
-Creating a sensor package that includes Force, RPM, Torque that can be logged onto a microSD card
-Design from scratch a gyro/accelerometer based "auto pilot" control system
-Power control for all electronics
-Working with the boost converter circuit created by previous EE for the power. Or developing a new system.

We are looking for some junior and seniors who have experience in controls, embedded, and power to help develop those systems. You would have a very large amount of freedom to develop the system and the times are flexible. If you start a project you would be expected to finish it but since the competition isn't for two years we are flexible with the pace of work.

Freshman and sophomores who would like to do a little work with microcontrollers and who would like to work with simple circuits are also welcome. Anyone who has taken EE215 will have something to do within the electronics group.

The team is based in the ME dept and we have a range of other tasks available if you are interested. Anyone who likes working with their hands will have plenty to do. We do work with composites, CNC manufacturing, and computer aided design (solidworks) among other things. If you would like to contribute to other systems such as the hull or CNC manufacturing or mechanical systems you would be more than welcome to help.
                                                                                                                                                                     
If anyone is interested in joining the team or finding out more, please email the team at uwsub@uw.edu or if you have any questions regarding the electronics email me at atching@uw.edu More info about last year's team and submarine can be found here: http://sites.google.com/site/washingtonhps/home