Five months ago, electrical engineering student Mike Milner set out to create something exciting and unique. The result is ARISE, the University of Ottawa’s Advanced Robotic Innovations Society in Engineering.
The club was started last semester with four people, and has since expanded to its current membership of 22 students from three different faculties, with Dr. Emil M. Petriu on board as faculty advisor and sponsor.
ARISE began as an answer to a challenge: to be the University of Ottawa’s first entry into the 7th International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition.
This year, the competition will take place at the U.S. Navy’s TRANSDEC facility in San Diego, California, from July 28 to August 2.It draws entries from some of the United States’ most prestigious technical schools, such as MIT, Duke and Cornell, and is broadcast on The Discovery Channel and Scientific American Frontiers.ARISE will be one of three Canadian teams submitting an entry.
The requirements are very specific for the autonomous underwater vehicle, which must complete an autonomous mission to be declared the winner.Each aspect of the vehicle’s mechanical subsystem and three-level electrical subsystem is being developed by members of ARISE.
The team has already taken on some major sponsors, such as Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) and The Engineering Endowment Fund (EEF) and will try to recruit more of them in coming weeks.
ARISE holds weekly meetings, every Thursday at 4 p.m., in the SITE building, room 1010.
