Team Bumblebee placed first at the Singapore Autonomous Underwater Challenge (SAUVC) 2024, held from 5 to 8 April 2024. The team took home the grand prize of $3,000.
The challenge was organised by the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society and supported by NUS and Singapore Polytechnic. It attracted over 100 teams from top institutions across 20 countries.
A student-led competition team passionate about building autonomous systems, Team Bumblebee is a multidisciplinary team comprising students from Mechanical Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Computer Science and NUS Business School. Based at CDE, they design and build autonomous maritime vehicles capable of navigating underwater, on the water and in the air, performing complex tasks autonomously.
To prepare themselves for the competition, the team started in February, logging over 400 hours of in-water time simulating actual obstacles at the University Sports Centre swimming pool. The development work for AUV4, the team’s SAUVC competition vehicle, focused on integrating new sensors and communication equipment for competition-specific tasks and long-term maintenance goals.
AUV4 was the only vehicle that attempted and succeeded in the bins pick-up task. Despite being the slowest vehicle in the qualification round, AUV4 managed to complete every single task with impressive precision.
In the bonus round, held at NUS TCOMS, AUV4 was the only vehicle that successfully navigated underwater currents and waves through a gate in a controlled pool setting that simulated challenges operational AUVs face in the ocean.
As the only team that successfully completed all given tasks, Team Bumblebee clinched first place overall, and first place for the bonus round.
Titus Ng, Team Lead of Bumblebee, added, “Due to our preparation and testing, we were confident of our team's ability to perform the tasks during the competition. Nevertheless, we faced some issues during qualification due to a last-minute change to our vehicle controls. Additionally, we underestimated the speed of other teams' vehicles, with some able to quality in just 7s! As our vehicle is not built for speed but control and capability, we were the slowest team to qualify. Nevertheless, we went through and performed well in the Finals, completing every single task.”
The team now has its sights set on international competitions and is gearing up to participate in RobotX 2024 in Florida at the end of the year.
