ALBATROS: An Open-Source Trash-Collecting Robot
The first prototype of the Wave association’s Albatros robot has just been produced. Since the beginning of the school year, a dozen students have been working on this open-source project for an aquatic waste collection robot. Like a small catamaran, the 1m² robot moves across the water collecting any waste it encounters. The students’ aim is to enable anyone to create their own boat to clean up marine environments and to introduce the general public to simple engineering concepts, while raising awareness of environmental issues.
Putting Knowledge into Practice
The student association Wave, which specializes in the maritime sector, offers a wide range of nautical activities and conducts innovative technical maritime projects.
Two teams of students are working on the Albatros project: one team is working on the robot’s structure, designing the catamaran’s hulls and a simplified collection system. Another team is working on energy, robot propulsion and remote control.
This project is an opportunity to apply concepts learned in class. To design the robot for example, students call on naval architecture, structural sizing, material resistance, mechanism technology, mechanical link sizing, hydrostatics, hydrodynamics, propulsion, fluid mechanics and CAD (Computer Aided Design) using the Catia software.
Sharing Know-How
The goal of the project is to share data in open source. All the results of the studies carried out by the students and all the files will be published and downloadable from September on the association’s website https://www.wave-estaca.com/ so that anyone (local authorities, secondary schools, etc.) with access to a Fablab can build their own robot.
Already thinking about what’s next…
The first Albatros robot to be offered this year is a remote-controlled version. In September 2023, a team of students will work on an autonomous version of the robot. For example, the team is imagining including a map of a port so that the robot can navigate autonomously, avoiding obstacles, boats, etc. The 2nd area for improvement could be the addition of sensors, for example systems that measure water quality or an on-board weather station…
Follow the project’s progress on Instagram: wave_estaca
