Water Hope — Robot for cleaning the coastal zone from marine debris

What it does

Water Hope moves along a preset trajectory and picks up floating trash and slime into a special removable container. It is operated by remote control from a smartphone. The system offers solution to the urgent problem of marine litter accumulation along coastlines.

Your inspiration

I read that in 1992 thousands of rubber ducks felt out of a ship during transportation in the Pacific.These toys are still may be found near shore zones.This had adverse effects on ecology including fish population, because they think that these toys are food. There is also a rise in aquatic toxicity. Additionally, I've found out that, even if the percentage of garbage that falls from ships into seas is about 20, it is still greatly affects the ecosystem. The rest 80 percent belongs to peoples` garbage. It stays in water for decades and affects the water life.The problem has an international importance because water plays enormous part in life of the Earth.

How it works

The robot`s main task is to collect garbage in pre-planned shore territory. The robot is under water during operating. Because of internal pump, water goes through a special output with a net, flotsam sucks inside with water and stays in the output. Clean water go through and leaves with a help of aperture beneath which helps the robot to move. The lower part is connected with the main part by gear wheel, which rolls. Thanks to it the robot is able of turning. There is a build-in electromotor powered by a battery. Because of case material (fiberglass) and air vacuum inside the robot has buoyancy. Smartphone application gives instructions to operation territory, status information and turning on/off the pump. Robots may be transported on jet skis, small boats, etc. Storages near mooring keep in robots.

Design process

It all started from the rise of the problem that touches not just me but the whole world as well. It's named "increase in marine debris". 1st STEP. Design Research: I have explored causes of garbage occurrence, kinds of garbage, consequences and existing variants that deal with the problem. I have created the Mind map, and then specialized the task to the cleaning of coastal zones from flotsam in this project. Having studied existing ways of dealing with the problem, I concluded that they are not effective because water should be cleaned with moving, not standing in one place. 2nd STEP. Sketching: form search, component layout and creating an ergonomic body. The sketching is based on design research, which also continued during this step. Having analyzed different ways of construction, I decided to choose a spherical form, because it gives a great buoyancy to the robot and allows placing of all components needed. 3rd STEP. 3D-Moduling: modeling of the robot`s body and constructive components in Fusion 360 software, basing on sketches and the design research. Currently we want to print a module with 3D-printer in the right scale and to test it.

How it is different

The filtering robot Water Hope is an outstanding machine, because it moves in water, and it is capable to clean all pre-planned territory, instead of defined shore spot, as existing analogs do. There is an innovation because the smartphone application controls the filter-robot.

Future plans

The project Water Hope started as a coursework. But now I want to continue to develop it. Near-term planes include the robot`s buoyancy calculation, adjusting the system if needed, then making of an operating prototype and testing of it. If the project realized, it might deal with the existing problem of water pollutions.

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