Welcome back to another pool test blog! This past weekend, we continued to test Oogway and began refining task algorithms from last competition and integrating several new changes to old tasks. 03/28/2026 In previous pool test blogs, we mentioned that Oogway has issues moving in a straight line. We suspect that part of this issue …
These two pool tests focused simply on prequalifying our main robot, Oogway. 03/21/2026 On Saturday, we began by re-testing our movement underwater. We observed that the robot was slightly off balance compared to the previous pool test, while buoyant at the surface of the water. This may be due to 3D prints taking on water, …
This blog will recap the progress we have made on the previous two pool tests. 02/21/2026 Pre-Qualifying During the 02/08/2026 pool test, we found that we had difficulty making it down the length of the pool. Often, the robot would yaw counterclockwise, causing it to deviate from the course and into the adjacent lane. To …
This pool test focused on 3 core tasks: testing a new yaw to cv object function, finalizing sonar to be merged, and gathering more acoustics data. New Yaw To CV Object: Roughly half the pool test was spent debugging the logic of this new task. This function is an experiment to learn and prepare future …
Welcome back to our pool testing blogs! This blog will serve as updates for both tests. 02/07/2026 Acoustics On Saturday, we focused on collecting long-overdue acoustics data for the acoustics team. We originally had some issues with the Logic software and our data collection scripts. Due to time constraints, we decided to use Logic 1 …
Welcome back to another action-packed, thrilling pool test! As has become tradition for the past few months, we only brought Oogway to the pool test, with Crush still in quite a discombobulated state. As such, we had an ambitious list of features to test. Prequalify The first thing we tried today (erm, actually this was …
Welcome back to the spring semester! I will be taking over the leadership of pool tests from Nathanael Ren, who is currently abroad for the semester. Due to Crush needing work with buoyancy blocks, we decided to start by just testing Oogway. We originally had also hoped to get some acoustics data at the pool; …
Thank you for joining me on this Sunday edition of the pool test update! We were extremely happy to have our team president Saagar “Big Saag” Arya and the rest of his team join us with acoustics, and new CS members join us with sonar! I will not even comment on the arrival since we …
My b gang, caught pretty much Ebola, had to skip last week. But ts gone now, and I’m sure y’all missed me greatly. Anyways, we are so back! This week’s pool test went decently. Pre-Pool Test We made it to the pool test at pretty much 2pm exactly. Oogway was pretty much ready to go …
Today’s pool test was hopefully the last pool test focused largely on cleaning up functionality before we start testing new code. Overall, it went very smoothly. Small Testing Items Today we spent the first 30 minutes of the pool test working on getting joystick controls running to let some new members drive the robot. We …
Officially past the halfway point of the fall semester, we’re finally starting to get into the groove of things. Today’s pool test went quite smoothly despite some hiccups at the start. Please also see the ode of appreciation for today. Gross Hall Issues Back in the lab, before we started pool testing, we had some …
After 5 weeks out of service, we were ecstatic to get back into the pool. Thankfully, it was not 6-7 weeks — that would have caused major timeline delays. Goals Our goals for this week’s pool test was to calibrate Oogway’s Gyro after returning from California, collect sonar data, and demo the robot. Setup and …
Ah, the first pool test of the year. In September this time! Vedarsh would be proud. Workflow Problems It’s almost never smooth, but this time we wasted quite a bit of time getting setup that we must eliminate in the future. Here’s an analysis of our timeline: 1:15pm: We begin moving everything over to the …
These two pool tests are our final set of tests for the summer! We wrapped up our testing and had some fun moving the robot in various directions. 07/19/2025 From our previous observations, we theorized that our earlier problems with x-direction movement were due to the concentration of buoyancy blocks in the middle of the …
For this set of pool tests, we dealt with some of the lingering effects of last week’s pool tests, which unfortunately hindered our progress. However, we continue to push forward this summer. 07/05/2025 When we arrived at the pool, we quickly ran into an issue. At the lab, we tested Crush with a battery as …
Sometimes (or quite often), plans quickly fall through, requiring a quick pivot to best make use of time. This weekend served as a prime example of this concept, leading to some frustrating but interesting situations. 06/28/2025 We started by working to re-tune our static power as detailed in the previous pool test update, but quickly …
After a short break, we have resumed pool testing with the summer pool test crew! Throughout the summer, we plan to test on Saturdays and Sundays leading up to the competition. We will be focusing on getting much-needed testing in for Crush and preparing other items before August. 06/07/2025 First day back to summer pool …
04/12/2025 Oogway: After several weeks of frustrating issues with state, Denton finally fixed the issue by resetting the pose0_differential and odom0_differential fields in Oogway’s oogway.yaml config file in sensor_fusion to true, which reverts them to their original settings. Combined with the earlier fix to the DVL coordinate frame, these changes restored proper state behavior. To …
Last weekend marks a major milestone for the team. Crush, our mini-robot, officially entered the water with all its electrical systems and software fully mounted! This achievement reflects a year’s worth of collaboration, persistence, and innovation across all subteams. With Crush finally in the water, we can now begin testing its full capabilities, including performing …
This was a relatively short pool test focused on resolving the DVL issues we encountered during the previous pool test. Specifically, we suspected that the DVL’s X and Y axes were swapped, leading to incorrect state data. Before heading to the pool, Denton and I attempted to fix this by modifying the DVL settings via …
Copyright © 2026 Duke Robotics Club. All Rights Reserved.