Gortobot: a small unmanned sailing drone that is trying to sail from the US across the Atlantic
Craig wrote in to tell us a little about his Gortobot project! You can view where Gortobot is here and read more about the project here.
The Gortobot project has a goal of sailing a small, robotic boat around the world.
More specifically:
Launch the first attempt within 1 year*
Control the boat via the Internet
Send off less than $500 of parts (to its likely doom)
Have fun trying
There is no speed requirement. Since the boat will follow trade routes, it does not need to go upwind. Therefore, a simple hull and rig, capable of surviving the elements and steering across or off the wind, is essential. Theoretically, this can be accomplished by controlling the trim of the sail alone (i.e., no active steering is required.)
The boat is not taking pictures nor any measurements other than those necessary to complete the mission. So, it will report its position and system voltage at intervals it receives via satellite instructions. It will also receive an ordered sail trim angle, which it will maintain until instructed otherwise.
Pretty simple…
The project is composed of the following:
The physical boat design
The hardware and network system
The software
* Okay, we didn’t launch within a year. How about 18 months?
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I really like this. Funny video, slow down! Joking aside, I think it’s a really great project.