RIT Student Engineering Team to Unveil Remote-Controlled Underwater Explorer

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A team of Rochester Institute of Technology engineering majors has designed and built an underwater remote-operated vehicle, which will be used to explore deep-sea shipwrecks in Lake Ontario this summer.

The explorer will be water-tested noon to 2 p.m. this Sunday, Feb. 19, in the pool in Gordon Field House and Activities Center on the RIT campus.

The team of RIT students includes Dan Scoville, who, working with Jim Kennard, located three previously undiscovered shipwrecks in Lake Ontario in recent years. This summer, Scoville and Kennard will identify the location of an 1800s-era schooner in the deep waters of Lake Ontario. Scoville and Kennard plan to view and videotape the craft for the first time ever using the RIT-designed, remote-controlled underwater explorer, which was built by students over the past six months.

The device is capable of diving to a depth of 400 feet—about 300 feet deeper than the recreational scuba-diving limit. Tethered to a 680-foot fiber-optic cable and controlled by a joystick attached to a laptop computer, the explorer returns video images and a variety of sensor readings.

“This project has been one of the most ambitious ever undertaken by RIT engineering students,” Scoville says.

WHAT: Demonstration of underwater remote-operated vehicle for exploring Lake Ontario shipwrecks

WHEN: Noon-2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 19

WHERE: Gordon Field House and Activities Center pool, RIT campus

BACKGROUND: For more on Dan Scoville and Jim Kennard’s previous exploration of Lake Ontario shipwrecks, visit www.shipwreckworld.com