battling the Monsoons to repair the ROV

the whole team loaded up this morning to go visit Jane Prophet at City University of Hong Kong. Ivan Zhao and Annick Lung who work with Jane gave as a little assistance to repair the ROV damaged in air travel.

we jumped the transit system and headed to Kowloon to sync up with the CU team about 10AM. the Hong Kong MTR is amazing and deserves it own post later. when we exited the train station it began to gently rain. soon the storm turned into a maelstrom of water moving parallel to the ground. we ducked under cover as best we could  but the MTR lets out on the opposite side of campus from the CUHK Creative Media Centre. using the buildings and walkways as cover we crossed about 2/3 of  the trip as the rain grew harder. we finally found one more covered walkway which ended about 100 feet from the CMC front doors; as we turned the corner there was Jane and some of her students with umbrellas ushering us into the building. Jane got us a moment to sit and gave us tea to smooth the trauma, but we soon got right to it.

enter, Ivan Zhao, brilliant research assistant to Professor Prophet, who had already cut us multiple copies (and 3d Fdm printed some too) of the file to replace the damaged piece. he consulted with us on the repair and found me a rotary tool to carve away the old piece. Annick Lung also joined us and was very helpful; she helped us make contact with another CUHK professor to advise us on chartering a boat for later in the week.

between the intense rains and the intensity of the repair, the afternoon flew. after getting back from our battles, we found ourselves in a local Hong Kong cafe over heaping plates of eggs, noodles, barbecue pork, and milk tea. reminded me of this:

Heroes in our midst

Yesterday, I was reeling abut the damage done to the submarine ROV I brought to HK.

Thankfully my hero, amazing artist and Mensch: Jane Prophet has graciously offered to host us visit the labs at City University of Hong Kong to laser cut the replacement part to repair the submarine. I was so stressed all yesterday.  Jane called me in the late afternoon and connected me with her Senior Assistant Ivan.  I am truly fortunate to have such generous colleagues who can make opportunities like this happen.

Ivan is the man; we worked out issues with the file and he confirmed with me. He also gave me a listing for an acrylics place in HK, so if I need to totally rebuild this tube we may have options.

We will be heading to CUHK at 11AM tomorrow. Wish us luck!!

Hong Kong... we have a problem.

Bits of the OpenROV collar on left. 

Sure maybe it isn't  as critical as an oxygen scrubber in my tiny tiny capsule, but upon arrival I discovered that the airline had really jostled the OpenROV equipment so hard that one of the battery tube connectors had been broken. NOT GOOD!!!   It seems that the Delta boys/girls threw the box around pretty hard and another component smacked the tube. I have ruminated on the issue and I have had several thoughts on mitigation. Add a cushion in that void, don't check the Pelican Box, etc.

Battery tube collars seen on the bottom left.

The problem is is with that circular piece seen at the bottom left of the image I stole from OpenROV (thank you guys). These rings retain the battery cap. No bueno!!!! UGGGGGH. 4000 miles to HK, something like this I guess is part of the program...




Time to solve this, NOW!!  So I spent a few sleepless hours until 3AM trying to find some google listings for acrylic and laser cutting outfit but I think there maybe a translation problem. It is unclear if these firms do one off jobs or there are other kinds of solutions. i have put a call into my contact at City University of Hong Kong, maybe she can help us with connecting us with a local group. I am also trying to sync with the local Makerspace: Dim Sum Labs.