January 29, 2007: $300 Homemade spy sub

[Undertoad]

It's Neatorama collaboration Monday!



Dugg today is this homemade spy sub, which is documented on Popular Science.

Some fathers and sons play catch. Electrical engineer Jason Rollette and his 12-year-old son Trevor are a little more ambitious. Hoping to explore the lakes and rivers near their Milwaukee home, they’ve built their own underwater remote-operated vehicle, or ROV. Controlled and powered by a laptop, their ROV can swim more than a quarter of a mile, to depths of 250 feet, while a home-surveillance camera sealed inside sends a live feed to the pilots onshore.

It has little lights on the front, so it can illuminate what the camera is looking at. It's controlled with a joystick and computer interface. The down side: a quarter-mile-long Ethernet cable. I guess wi-fi doesn't work underwater?

Be sure to visit Neatorama for more neato items every day.