Super Duck Excursions, the Boston-based terra-amphibious touring company, challenges the teams to create underwater radio-controlled robots to spice up their narrated tours.
- 1) The Challenge (4:09)
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Bonus Footage
Inside the Green Team
Inside the Purple Team
- 1) The Challenge (4:09)
- 2) Brainstorm (2:31)
- 3) Design (9:30)
- 4) Build & Test (6:39)
- 5) Test & Redesign (1:34)
- 6) Judging (3:14)
- 1) Purple Brainstorm (1:00)
- 2) Lob-stah and Chow-dah (0:21)
- 3) Green Brainstorm (0:48)
- 4) Thinking Positive (1:07)
- The teams are challenged to build a radio controlled aquatic robot for the "Super Duck Excursions" terra-amphibious tour. The robot can be built out of anything, but it must surprise and entertain the tour guests.
- The Green Team gets off to a slow start after spending good amount of time debating what their sea creature will look like, and how big to make it.
- The Green Team floats a test design of their sea creature in the pool to see how it looks. They also test the use of the remote controlled motor to propel their sea creature, but they end up have some trouble controlling it. The Green Team is using a diver propulsion vehicle (DPV), which will allow the monster to bob up and down in the water.
- The Green Team begins by building their platform out of wood. They build struts to support their DPV, and a gimbal that will allow the sea creature to pivot in the water. The Team builds and shapes the body of their sea creature out of polystyrene foam. A quick test in the pool shows that the Team was having trouble keeping the motor running correctly.
- The Green Team explains their design to the client. Although the client likes the idea of the design, he was disappointed that it wasn't finished. In the end, neither team won the challenge because they didn't finish their aquatic robot in time.
- The teams are challenged to build a radio controlled aquatic robot for the "Super Duck Excursions" terra-amphibious tour. The robot can be built out of anything, but it must surprise and entertain the tour guests.
- The Purple Team decides to use a diver propulsion vehicle (DPV) attached to the body of a sea creature. They decide to use a lobster as their sea creature. They want the lobster to be big enough to be scary, but not so heavy that it sinks easily.
- The Purple Team plans to use water-proof servo motors, controlled by a radio transmitter, to open and close the lobster's claws. The Purple Team debates whether to manually move the lobster up and down out of the water using an anchor and pulley system, or to move it by remote control.
- The Purple Team decides to use the pulley system. They build their platform combining buoyant foam and two pieces of wood. They have trouble finding the right amount of foam to hold the claws just above the water. Too much foam will make it too buoyant, and difficult to pull under water. As they test their design in the pool, they also run into trouble with the wires that open and close the lobster's claws.
- As the Purple Team explains their design to the client, they run into problems pulling their lobster claws under water. The client doesn't like the labor-intensiveness of the pulley system. The client also felt the Purple Team's lobster concept wasn't what they were looking for. In the end, neither team won the challenge because they didn't finish their aquatic robot in time.
Anthony Westphal builds robots that can swim like animals.Watch this.
Design and build a boat out of straws and plastic wrap.