Hey r/DIY,So for an intro to engineering class we're being tasked with building an autonomous vessel that can navigate through obstacles floating in a swimming pool and across to the other side. However, we were told that if our vessel can go underwater, we do not need to follow the specified route.We're toying with the idea of designing a hull that can sink under the surface when at full speed and then come back up at low speeds, which would allow us to go straight across the pool. I have no experience with boat design but am into track-built cars a lot, so was considering building some canards or an airbrake or something into the hull to accomplish this. Our current idea is doing a catamaran type of boat with completely airtight hulls, and the center section being angled to function as a wing that uses water flowing against it to pull the boat down into the water at speed. The hull sections being airtight would allow it to float back up when moving slow we hope. We need to be able to retrieve it without getting in the water as an assignment objective. Could anyone give me some pointers on working this out?TL;DR: need to design a boat to go around obstacles autonomously, need help designing a hull/body that can go under the obstacles at speed and come back up at low speed without any electronics other than motor/propeller. via /r/DIY https://ift.tt/2IiMH8x
