Princeton's First Cistern

Now that the Princeton students are here in Malta, the four of us finally have our chance to actually work with the ROV at a cistern. We went to Mdina today to visit a couple of cisterns at private residences there. Despite some confusion about where exactly we were supposed to go, we manged to get access to a pretty interesting cistern. We also got to explore the fortress at Mdina for a while which was pretty fun since none of us had been to anything like it before.

For this deployment, Drew ran the data collection, I piloted, and Anna and Yingxue managed the ROV. After lowering the ROV down the shaft, we found a rather interesting cistern that consisted of a main bell-shaped room with three circular chambers off to the sides. All of them were at slightly different depths but all were about one meter deep. We took 14 scans in all, and Billy says he should be able to make a pretty nice map out of the data we got.

The owner of the house we were working in was very excited to watch us work and see the images of his cistern. He was particularly interested to see just how much water it could hold.

Conquering 9 Cisterns and Welcoming Princeton Students!

It was a very warm day in Gozo today. We got to the farms outside of Victoria, set up our equipment and generator and proceeded to run through 9 cisterns, quickly and efficiently gathering sonar and video and then pulling back up to start again!

Some of the cisterns were quite exciting, like Cistern #1 which we found the hard way was filled with roots! As the ROV was pulled out of the cistern, a blanket of roots covered the entire body. A local farmer helped us to pull the roots out of the motors and off the ROV.

By the last cistern, we were on a roll. We were able to set up, deploy the ROV, scan, and pull the ROV back up in less than 10 minutes! We did have one bump in the road on this cistern, where we forgot to record our scan data, but it was quickly resolved.

When we got home to the apartments, three of the four Princeton Students were already there. We were introduced to Drew, Austin and Yingxue and were informed that Anna was out on a

quick trip to the University of Malta with Jane. The Cal Poly students and the Princeton students decided to take a quick trip to the rocky shore down the road from our apartments and jump in the water. Besides the freezing water, all Cal Poly students and faculty, minus Billy and Jane, managed to get in, even if for just a few seconds.

We returned to the apartment, washed up and ate a great dinner with all 14 of us! Afterwards Timmy came to say goodbye to Zoe and Jane, for the were leaving in the morning. They are very sad to be leaving during such a great time, but they are quite excited to be able to go home again.

Quite a busy and fun day! More tomorrow!

Goals and Progress

Over the break I've worked on integrating the data from Smart Tether into the FastSLAM algorithm for better localization of the ROV in the underwater caves of Malta. The algorithm will match up several Smart Tether measurements with the times of the sonar scans and use an average of those measurements to calculate a weight for a given particle's estimated position of the ROV. I've also started to make sample Smart Tether data based on the data we collected at the pool to use for testing.

Having worked on localization with the x80 ground robot and a known map in Prof. Clark's Autonomous Robot Navigation class, I am interested in the technical challenges presented by underwater localization and with having no map initially. I've studied Latin for four years and Italian for two, so I'm very interested in the history of Malta as it dates back to Greek and Roman times as well as the culture of Malta and the Mediterranean region.

Hello!

Hi!

My name is Yingxue Li and I'm from Carmel, Indiana. Currently, I'm a junior in the computer science department at Princeton University. I'm also on the rifle team at Princeton and in my free time, I like to play League of Legends. I don't have a lot of experience with robotics, but I'm very excited to be working on this project with everyone!

Hello!

Hey everyone!

My name is Drew Boik and I'm a junior at Princeton studying computer science. I'll be working with Austin Walker on the software for cave mapping. I am from Winter Springs, Florida (near Orlando), and in my spare time I like to sing, play piano, and play trumpet in the Princeton University Orchestra. When I'm in Florida I also work seasonally at Disney World in the Magic Kingdom. I'm really excited to work with the ICEX team and can't wait to go to Malta!

Short Intro

Hello there,

My name is William Song and I am currently a junior studying computer science at Princeton University. I was born in Seoul, South Korea, but spent most of my childhood in Vancouver, Canada. In my spare time I enjoy bboying and snowboarding.

I am very excited to be a part of ICEX 2012! I look forward to meeting you all.

Greetings from Princeton

Hello everyone! My name is Austin Walker, and I'll be going to Malta for part of the time with the ICEX team. I am from rural Indiana, and I'm currently a junior at Princeton University, where I am studying computer science. I got my first computer when I was 3, and I've been working with them ever since. I mostly work in Java and C, though I have also done some web-based programming as well. When I'm not buried under work, I'm probably either trying to get some new thing to work on my computer or at the University's rock gym. I enjoy caving, diving, backpacking, and pretty much anything else outdoors. I also love to travel; I've been to most of the US and to four continents (including Antarctica).

I'm really excited about being a part of the ICEX program this year. I will be working with Prof. Clark and Drew Boik on the software to build maps out of the data we get from the caves in Malta. We are already off to a good start here in Princeton, and I hope that we will have a great year all around.

Welcome All!

Welcome everyone to this years ICEX program! My name is Chris Clark and I have been one of the technical leads on the robotics side of the ICEX program for 3 years. My background includes mobile robots, controls, motion planning, and multi-robot systems. I often like to apply my ideas to underwater robots in the field. If not playing with these toys, you can find me hanging out with my family or surfing, (when my location permits). Since we created the ICEX program in 2008, the number of students and faculty participants have grown - and so has the research and cultural learning. I am excited to work with all the new participants (as well as the old!)