Portugal is 97% water
AQUA is a small autonomous vessel for biowater research and aquatic engineering learning. This project aims to considerer the environmental sustainability from start to end as a core strategy, meaning that, all the steps, from fabrication to the end of life, should be environmentally friendly. This team values should always be under the 4R's and circular economy principles, at least to a 70% degree. It aims also to estimulate the focus at the water and ocean systems since Portugal is 97% water. It also pretains to deliver a water platform system for the research comunity that is simple to use, to repair and opensource, at least at same point.
So, it will use 3D printing with easy environmental decomposition materials, being environmentally friendly from the very begining of the conceptualization, until the moment that is out of service: what shoul it be used for then?
From the point of view of the operation it should run by manual controling with video display and GPS way points with an autonomous avoidance system. It should be user friendly and built with cheap components ready available on the market and simple to repair. Battery autonomy should last for two hours.
This catamarã is a 1,2 m long and it pretends to be used in inside waters in good weather conditions. It is autonomous and carries a structure to transport sensores and gather local information of physical and chemical parameters.
Because of this fact, we think that Portugal should set this strategy as a major footprint: taking care of the sea by knowing about it and defende it as an asset for the long future.
This project is documented as a journal in the file with the name "journal".
- Aquatics robotics made simple, to be used by students and as inland water and port systems research platform;
- Reusable, affordable and biofriendly
- Biofriendly up to 80%
- Simple and cheap maintance
António Gonçalves, Lab Aberto FAB LAB coordinator, project coordinator and aqua system control
Nuno Gomes, CEO XYZLAB, Product Designer
David Rodrigues, PhD, IPLeiria, avoidance systems
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This starts is based in the FAB ACADEMY 2019, as the final [incompleted] project, at the FCT FAB LAB, Filipe Silvestre, as the local instructor and Luís Carvão, as the node instructor, course coordenated by the FABACADEMY, by professor Neil Gershenfeld.
Since then, the Lab Aberto FAB LAB have supported two catamarans made by our intership (Guilherme Cruz) and by the Lab Aberto team, with that they were the winners of 2018 Sunset Hackathon.
At this moment we gather, informally, a few experties of different areas to develop a project that need time to set the hulls on the water. We have a "AQUA" which is a body board with same components to serve as pilot test platform, owned by tha Lab Aberto FAB LAB assotiation. And we are a spinoff of LAB ABERTO FAB LAB, building a first prototyping more close to a small catamaran vessel for inside water bodies training and research.
After being tested we will deliver it to the MARE in Peniche - Portugal (this is a depratment of the Polytechnic Institue of Leiria) for further testing in a real framework of researchers and students.
Buoyancy testing
- Associação Lab Aberto FAB LAB, non-profit association
- António Marçal, advising and workshop space, Marçal Metalworking
- Marko Mauser, Mauser
- Paulo Teixeira, 3D printing, FABLAB EDP/Labelec
- Gonçalo Pereira, bateries training, LCD Porto
- Renan Portocarrero, MAKER, 3D printing