Colin Brown | Other Projects and Hobbies

Cedar Strip Catamaran

My first attempt at ship design and construction. The May is a 14 foot catamaran I designed in 3d Studio Max and began building out of cedar strips. Building a ship is decidedly labour intensive. The project began in 2006 and has been slowly progressing every time I find a free week of good weather in the right city. Whether she'll sail well or not (although not un-researched) remains to be seen, I just hope she floats.

Boatbot

The Boatbot is a small autonomous robotic boat designed to travel on the open ocean without support. It is powered by an Arduino programmable board and uses GPS and a digital compass to navigate.

Core Objectives
-Ability to navigate to way points in open water using GPS and a digital compass.
-Ability to communicate position and status back to land via programmable cellular board.
-Ability to operate for hours without needing to replace the battery.

Architecture
-The Boatbot runs on the popular Arduino platform, a programmable board that runs C code.
-The code has been written on my own and with help from a number of samples for all the various devices that the Boatbot uses.

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