Our team goal was to create a competitive boat robot in order to win the Sumo Water World Challenge. The challenge was to push the other robot against the side of the pool in a mini baby pool. Our goal was to create a robot that can move omni-directionally in the water and was also heavy enough to have a strong pushing power against the other robots. 

Our original idea was of a boat using an underwater motor with a propeller on it with a servo on it to change the direction of the whole motor, much like an outboard motor boat. We quickly decided to switch to a design that allows omni-directional motion, featuring an underwater pivot motor that could rotate 360 degrees. This idea would give a strength of agility to dodge the other slower, more rigid robots. In order to ensure stability and floatation, we planned to include two clear plastic containers. We would hold our electronics in the highest box to keep them away from the water. This design would accomplish our goals for an efficient, competitive robot. 

Following planning, we started coding the boat. We made a program that allowed us to speed up as we moved the joystick further forward. We also used this function to turn slower and quicker based on the joystick displacement for the servo. We decided to use two motion devices, one underwater motor and one servo. The servo would control the direction of the underwater motor, rotating it 360 degrees. We found our robot's base, two clear, plastic containers, and glued the two containers on top of each other. we CADed a mount for the motor (seen to the left) that could be inserted into a VEX shaft. However, we had to predicted a problem with the wires wrapping around the motor if the servo rotated too much. So, to address this problem, we CADed an extension to the mount that allowed the wires rotate around along with the motor, reducing wire wrapping. To finalize our build process, we put everything together, connecting the motor mount to an axle and servo, creating a directional indicator attached to the motor, building a servo mount out of VEX parts, and putting our control hub and battery inside the top container. This completed our creation phase. 

We adjusted the model of the boat to fit the dimension requirements by sanding down sides of the robot, which not only helped our robot fit the required dimensions but also created smoother surfaces on the boat so we could add additional materials such as the styrofoam-like material, which we added to help the boat float. After testing our boat in the pool, we realized that our boat was tilting, stopping us in our tracks. To combat this, we moved the styrofoam-like material to the sides of the boat instead of the bottom as it was significantly more effective and solved a weight imbalance issue we were facing with the boat. 

After initially testing our boat, we realized water was leaking into the boat, adding more weight to the boat, causing it to move less effectively. To solve this issue, we added waterproof glue to seal any potential areas where water could leak in while also supporting the foundation of the main structure of the boat. Additionally, our underwater motor/propellor kept falling out, so we created a servo shaft to secure the motor into the main structure of the boat. Lastly, we created a hole in the top of the boat to account for wire control and added a small wooden stick to the propeller so we could locate and plan our turning more efficiently. 

After these small tweaks, our robot was ready to compete. We got second place in our competition only because the other robot weighed three times our robot and we could only dodge for so long.