It’s week 4 and the team is in full swing of the construction of the boat. The goal is to have the craft finished by the end of this quarter so that it can complete its journey from California to Catalina by the second week of March. Because last quarter was all about research and design and this quarter is primarily about building and testing, the future of our blog posts will be presented in the format below which separates the subsystems into mini updates and provides bullet point updates from each member in the project. We have everyone working on their own respective parts and these categories best summarize the overall group’s effort.

Powertrain Assembly
Most of the components required for the assembly process are in the lab, however the team is still waiting for additional parts to arrive.
Engine and shaft installation to be finished by the end of this week.

Steering Assembly
Entire assembly constructed in Solidworks and team members from this subdivision will be CNC’ing a prototype this week for further testing.

Control Systems
Raspberry Pi microcontrollers are being utilized. The majority of controls will be later on in the project when the physical design is completed.

Energy Storage & Consumption
Two 12 Volt batteries have been arrived and have successfully started the diesel engine motor.
Still analyzing potential options such as fuel bladders and other fuel storage methods.
Continued research on solar panel implementation.

Design and Research / Other
Solidworks CAD model is finalized showing animation of spinning propellor shaft
Continue research on propeller specifications for optimal performance and maximum torque.
Will reach out to UCI communications to see if we can get media coverage of our project and get it on the UCI newsletter and/or website.