Jose Madrigal: Rudder Control for an Autonomous Sailboat

Jose Madrigal: This summer I was able to participate in the SURF-IT program. The program allowed me to see first hand the work done in graduate school. I found the program extremely rewarding and learned a lot. I worked in the Autonomous Systems Lab and helped restore the Atlantis, an autonomous sail boat. Through my experiences on the project I learned a lot about working on a team and the design process.

Another SURF-IT student and I worked on the rudder control for the autonomous sail boat. The rudder controller required us to prototype and draw schematics of the circuitry. When a working circuit was finally created we were able to solder everything together. One of the most important lessons which I learned was even though a project works initially, it could have problems once installed. Through trouble shooting we found that noise from the motor was causing the circuit not to work properly. We fixed the problem by adding filters and shielded cable. This type of work made the summer an extremely useful learning experience.