During my sophomore year on Cornell University Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (CUAUV), I was the lead of the M.I.N.I. Mechanical subgroup and worked on designing the main enclosure for our minisub, Pollux. During the fall semester I explored numerous possible designs for the enclosure, the Upper Hull Pressure Vessel or UHPV as we call it, and ultimately decided on one which would experiment with new geometry and test new manufacturing equipment at our disposal.
I then worked with the other members of the mechanical subteam in and outside of scheduled design reviews to work through the details of the design to guarantee that it could be manufactured and that it would integrate properly with other projects. Since the UHPV houses the submarine’s main computer, electronics boards and their racks, and the many connectors transmitting data to other enclosures around the sub, I also had to work with the electrical and software teams to ensure that their needs were being met as well.
During the Spring semester we fabricated the parts for the hull, both in Cornell’s Emerson Machine Shop and at DATRON Dynamics West, then sanded them to perfection and sent them off to be anodized. Once they returned the parts were mechanically integrated, leak tested, then electrically integrated and put to work as we began testing for the 2018 International RoboSub Competition in August.