The Problem
We are a robotics team located in Seattle, WA. During our off season, we like to work on and experiment with different robots. Last year, we built an underwater robot named Kraken. When we took Kraken into the Puget Sound and into Lake Washington, we saw lots of trash on the bottom of the sea and lake. We wanted a way to clean up the garbage, but didn't have an arm on the robot to pick up trash. For our off-season project this year, we are building Kraken 2 and are planning an arm and hand that can pick up trash and clean up the waters that the wildlife lives in and around and that the humans love in our area.
Our Plan
We will re-use parts of our current underwater robot to create Kraken 2. We will clean Lake Union, because our actions will have a higher impact in a smaller body of water, it is home to salmon runs, and there is lots of human recreation in the area that could be affected by pollution. We'll plan and build Kraken 2 and then go to the lake to clean up. We'll collect the trash and collect any data we might be able to if we can afford sensors, i.e. acidity of water, temperature etc. We'll also have our map of the area and see if we can offer any suggestions of how to help keep the water clean, i.e. trash cans on shore, require boats to carry trash bins, fines for littering in the water etc.
