Welcome to our happy place. This year, the SMU Robotics Club is competing in the International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition for the second time.
Updates: Our new photo album shows the latest pictures of Seahorse III and our blog is being updated daily.
Check out our interview with the Dallas Morning News and the accompanying video.
Nathan Huntoon displays Seahorse III to reporters.
Robotics Club History: Last year, our robot was stolen two days before the competition. Poor Seahorse I was kidnapped out of the backseat of a car. She must have looked rather expensive, because the kidnapper dropped his whole stash of stolen ABBA c.d.'s to grab her. Fortunately, our team sprung into action and began a two-fold recovery project: building a brand new Seahorse while making teary-eyed parental pleas for her safe return on the local news.
We were saved at last when a youngster in South Dallas found Seahorse in a patch of weeds and gleefully presented his new "bomb" to his Grandma. Understandably alarmed, the woman tried to alert the police (who didn't believe her story about a possible bomb) and then called up SMU when a friend recognized Seahorse from the evening news. Grateful and relieved, we took off for San Diego, spent many hours tinkering with Seahorse and her new twin in the hotel room, and went on to win 11th place in the AUVSI competition. We even nabbed the prize for "Perserverance in the Face of Adversity" (though we hope we don't win that one again).