These boats were my work at the Theoretical and Applied Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at UC Berkeley under Professor Reza Alam.
I designed the mechanical architecture and all individual components for three generations of autonomous sailboats.
I also performed electrical and software integration, manufacturing extensive testing, and deployment management.
The boats operate in a mesh network, communicating with each other and a ground station to collect oceanic data over a large area.
They generally feature the same overall design with a single 2ft ABS tube hull, a large vertical airfoil sail, and a weighted keel for stability.
The first generation, TINA, was based on the lab’s past designs but with improvements to usability and DFM for 3D printing, plus new mounts for a new generation of custom electronics and control systems.
In addition, a new sail shaft sealing system and epoxy-coated manufacturing process practically eliminated previous leakage issues.
However, with the early boats’ epoxied design, damaged boats could not be repaired easily and new versions of parts could not be back-ported onto existing boats.
Thus came BOB, standing for “Bolt On Boat”, whose components were all modular.
A complex system of gaskets and O-rings kept the boat mostly watertight.
Still, BOB was too complicated to assembly and occasionally suffered from leakage at the bolt holes.
The latest generation, BOBneo (“no entry option”), and its derivative COB (“Clamp On Boat”), eliminated any bolt entry into the hull and proved to be much more reliable.
Unfortunately, I don’t have any photos of BOB in the water. Shown here are two iterations of TINA.