Caltech Robotics Team

New CRT Merch is up on the Caltech Store! Profits help fund parts for our upcoming robots as well as improvements on our finished subs, Deb and Flo, which are featured on the shirt and the back of the sweater (along with some fish friends!).

Links to the merch below!
Tshirt: https://caltechstore.caltech.edu/products/103533
Sweater: https://caltechstore.caltech.edu/products/105060
Water bottle: https://caltechstore.caltech.edu/products/105062
Cap: https://caltechstore.caltech.edu/products/105061

RoboNation - AUVSI Foundation has recently announced that the in-person portion of the RoboSub 2020 competition has been canceled in light of COVID-19. Deb's gonna have to wait until next year to show her stuff, but our team will keep working hard to make sure everything's ready for when that time comes!

Unfortunately, because of the situation with Covid-19, most Caltech students will not be on campus this coming term. This will make preparing for competition much more difficult, but our team will be doing the best we can while working from home!

At this time, the Robosub competition is still on for August. Stay safe, everyone!

First pool test of 2020, and Deb's first time in the pool! Deb's been dealing with a tiny pressure leak for a while, and we've finally found the source: reminder to always check your adapters for microcracks

We recently had our first pool test of the school year! We just wanted to make sure Flo is still fully functional, but Murphy's law dictated that our pressure sensor should stop working. Just a loose wire, so it was thankfully a quick fix

The team is already hard at work making sure Deb is ready for testing!

First team meeting of the year! We'd like to welcome all of our new members, and hope for a successful year!

Finally got around to unpacking everything we brought to competition, and after a long day of work, we can finally see the floor again!

Some more photos from our time at Robosub 2019

Each year during competition week, CRT has the pleasure of presenting our robot to any Caltech alumni who have the time to stop by. We couldn't do what we do without the support of the Caltech community!

Unfortunately, CRT was not able to make finals this year at Robosub. Our semifinal matches were ended by technical issues, but we got everything fixed in time for wildcard matches. We scored decent points, just not enough to make it to finals. Can't win every year, but we did our best, and that's what counts.

A brief list of (almost) everything that went wrong:
- dead thruster
- broken gripper
- defective hydrophone circuit
- defective DVL
- broken kill switch
- uncooperative Ethernet cables
- washers loose in camera dome

If the team was able to deal with all of this in a week, we should be well-prepared for a great performance next year!

Never a boring day... after a long night of work, we managed to convince our DVL to keep working, only to discover an issue with our kill switch right before our second semifinal match. Not so easily discouraged, our team worked hard to get our sub back in working shape, and managed to have a successful practice match later the same day. We have wildcard matches tomorrow morning; it won't be easy, but it's one more shot to get to finals!