January 29, 2007: $300 Homemade spy sub

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.

Wait... just wait, the fascists in our govt will put a stop to this lil' hobby.
"We will have no smart people HERE!!!... Keeel them."

I am impressed beyond all rational thought capacity. Also jealous.

Undertoad wrote:

The down side: a quarter-mile-long Ethernet cable. I guess wi-fi doesn't work underwater?

Somebody needs to tell them about acoustic transponders.

The technical details for making such a call have been in place for years. The three-person crew aboard the Alvin--submerged 2.5 kilometers below the East Pacific--communicates to the surface ship Atlantis via acoustic transponders, a type of underwater telephone. The phone on Atlantis is in turn connected to a satellite phone, which can buzz anyone on shore. To complete the sea-to-space link, scientists merely needed to have Atlantis call the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, where a high-powered dish transmitter speaks directly with the space station.

Let's put one in Sundae Girl's bathtub!

It will need a new attachment up front then...

This guy has some serious time on his hands. If you go to his website check out the railgun he made :eek:

Deuce;311335 wrote:

Somebody needs to tell them about acoustic transponders.

Then where does the sub get its power?

Then where does the sub get its power?

P.O.E.

Power Over Ethernet.:rotflol:

That's how my glowy tape ball works...



Of course I'm not trying to send any info along with the power...

Spexxvet;311357 wrote:

Let's put one in Sundae Girl's bathtub!

:eek:

rkzenrage wrote:

It will need a new attachment up front then...

... for the jungle safari...

TMI?

Dayum!