The Cave Rover™ Project
Exploring the Unknown
The Cave Rover Project Hype Update: We were mentioned on the amazing Behind The Bots podcast !!! [Life Dream…Check!] If you haven’t tuned in before, Behind The Bots is a weekly combat robotics podcast that features the experiences and stories of the
The Cave Rover Project: Latest video! Find the beauty in failures, and strive on! First Cave ROVer Robot Cave Dive Attempt Mar 7,2020.
The Cave Rover Project: Sumpy First Dive Test! Go Exploration! Enormous Thank You to Galen Hekhuis for his support to the Cave Rover Project and adventure!
The Cave Rover Project: Salvador Lugo shared with us these amazing photos of his latest Cave Expedition in Puerto Rico sporting his Cave Rover patch! Salvador, thank you for the support and helping to inspire!
The Cave ROVer Update: Me: 0 – Mystery Robot Leak: 1. Thus far replaced all 4 leak sensor probes, new color indicating desiccant, 2 new expanding foam inserts, removed, cleaned, inspected, resealed primary enclosure, triple O-Rings on forward, camera dome, triple O-rings
The Cave Rover Project Update: All Hail the newest member to the robot team! For we shall call it Sumpy! The newest robot to the team comes to the project thanks to the incredible amazing wonderful inspirational Galen Hekhuis! Galen from day
Wow check this out! Mind blowing incredible, this means so much, I don’t even know what to say! In preparation for an up coming Expedition in Puerto Rico, Salvador Lugo had a Cave Rover Project Patch made up to show the love
The Cave ROVer Update: A Brief post Florida cave dive preliminary report. In summary during a recent cave dive attempt 3/6/2020, the robot entered the water, all systems go, as it neared the cave entrance, the leak sensor system went into alarm
A few photos from Marianna FL Dive sent to us from Donald Harter.
The Cave ROVer Update: What a great birthday, thank you everyone for such warm kind words. Just basking in this Florida weather, spent the first part of the day at Florida Caverns, I have wanted to see it since I was a
Great time visiting with Edd and hanging at Cave Adventurers.
Post tear down update: disassembled and completely dry inside, we are starting to suspect the sudden drop in water temperature might of condensated and sat the alarm off. As Joshua and I both noted no prior to dive loss in test pressure.
The Cave ROVer Update: Divers in the water, cave rover descending to the cave…Leak Detected! Emergency surfaced. I suspect I may have gotten some fine sand in the O-rings.. ? So extremely bummed that had to call the dive, so now no
Officially arrived at the Florida Cave Crawl! Lots of fun to follow..
The Cave ROVer Roject – Southern Bound… IN….KY….TN….AL….FL!
The Cave ROVer Update: Back in Business!! Third time was the charm and the primarily in-field control laptop is operational once more. Now to run the system through a final extensive system test, charge all the power packs, ready the cameras, and
The Cave ROVer Project Update: Attempt to replace monitor in preparation for leaving tomorrow for FL attempt #1…..Fail. 1) All back together and did not come up, so all back apart is goes…. attempt #2:….Put screw in wrong spot…one more time! 2)
Sometimes you find yourself chasing dreams, staring at that unknown, wondering what could lay ahead and thinking “do I go for it”. Having one of those deep thought days. Rather mentally and physically tired today, These past few months alone, have been
The Cave Rover Project: Wow, check out this stunning image of Cave Rover Project stickers being created at BW Sign Masters. What a glorious sight to see ? — with Christina Andrea Harris.
The Cave ROVer Update: Our second pair of custom ceramic bearings are in and installed! Remind me these are in Forward Starboard, that’s now both fwd most thrusters running on the new bearing. Now to spin them up for a break in,
So accidents happen, but this just happened to my laptop, so don’t mind if i cry in a corner for a bit. This is very very Very bad timing. As it runs everything from rover to my life right now. Update: At
The Cave ROVer Update: Second battery unit is in, charging and conditioned in preparation for our up coming robot cave dive in Florida. The additional power unit will be a fantastic addition, as present test dives have demonstrated our average operating time
Getting to be a part of a presentation live in California at a makerspace (via Robot, while I’m home in Indiana), and see Cave Rover on the Screen, warms the heart!! So thankful to have such talented, amazing friends and community, truly.
The Cave Rover Project: Sharing the love today comes from Quebec! Jean-Philippe Dubuc shared with us his Cave Rover Sticker lunch box, this is so cool! Thank You Jean-Philippe!
The Cave ROVer Project Update: Continued systems checks in preparation of our Robot Cave Dive coming up March 6-7th, if all goes as planned we will try to even stream it Live! Software development code testing in collaboration with our Sonar Sponsor
The Cave ROVer Project Update: Our First Official Cave Robot Cave Dive Nears! Be sure to send all those positive energy vibes, as coming this March 6 & 7, after months of development and testing, the robot heads to Florida to conduct
Newest addition to the collection — with Lotus Petal.
The Cave Rover Update: Special thanks for Nikolous Bender Cox for the lead on a transport case for the bots. It might not be the prettiest or fanciest, but finally having something to transport in will be very helpful. Thanks Nik!
The Cave Rover Update: Special thanks for Nikolous Bender Cox for the lead on a transport case for the bots. It might not be the prettiest or fanciest, but finally having something to transport in will be very helpful. Thanks Nik!
!!!! ** BIG ANNOUNCEMENT ** !!!! After much anticipation, I can finally reveal that my team and I are headed to do combat at BattleBots 2020!!!! Honored, Proud and much Humbled to officially be member of team Aquatic Machine Force! “It’s Robot
Update: Great Game! ZimZam 1 and TeamDino 2. Rover is going offline for the evening, check back for more fun adventures soon. The Cave Rover Project: Who wants to go on a lights out sticker hunt in the Rover Laboratory?! We had
The Cave ROVer Update: More software updates and bench testing. New video overlay allows for important sensor data to display on the recorded video in real time, and turns on/off like subtitles. Very pleased with that feature. Additionally the new 360 Sonar
The Cave ROVer Update: Lots of software and code update today. New firmware in the lower sonar unit, Operating System update in on-board computer #1, Firmware/OS update in on-board computer #2, topside control software update. Special Thanks to a contribution from the
The Cave Rover Project: All New 2 inch Round (5cm) Stickers! Head on over to https://caverover.com/shop to pick yours up today!
The Cave Rover Project will be presenting tonight at 7:30pm at the Bloomington Indiana Grotto. See you there!
Update: Rover is going back offline to charge, that was an amazing game! Congratulation TEAMDINO for finding so many we lost track. ….. Let’s have some fun! Control an actual cave robot to explore and find the hidden Cave Rover Project Sticker
The Cave Rover™ Project: Sharing the love today comes via Fabian Van Keulen, showing his Cave Rover stickers, next to his robot Azure, in the Netherlands!! Fabian is a dear friend, twitch streamer & robot builder. One of the amazing things personally
The Cave ROVer Update: After months of hair pulling and many hours of coding, the Robotic Simulator is coming along. When the weather is to yuck to take the out the Cave Rovers, the advanced simulator allows test & training to continue.
Sharing the love, and time to kick some robot bootie!! Combat robot pilot Kev Baxter of England shared his fighting robot Iron Legion, preparing for battle in the UWE next week, sporting a Cave Rover Project decal!! ? This..Is…Awesome! Best to Kev,
The Cave ROVer Update: Completed the utility blade cutter accessory, and Very pleased with the results! Looks nice, functions great, stainless replaceable blade. To be utilized with and without the Benthic Sediment Sampler, for vegetation research, utility or aid for self rescue.
The Cave ROVer Update: Thaasta Knife, prototyping accessory utility blades for the Cave ROV, for use in vegetation sampling, various utility work and possible self rescue situations.
The Cave ROVer Project Update: Look who gets to spend 40hrs refabricating the Benthic Sediment Sampler. I can report that the sampler is Extremely Rugged. Out of the desire to push it to the limits to test for a failure point. I
Love seeing the love, be sure to share those Cave Rover Project stickers, magnets, window cling photos so we can post then on the website: CaveRover.com
The Cave Rover Project sticker photo from TN, USA 🙂
Brewing a plan to take the Cave ROVer Project to the Florida Cave Crawl Match 6-8th for some true epic cave diving. Anyone interested or going let me know. Please consider a donation to the project to help make this and several
The Cave ROVer Update: Not sure why I wasn’t doing this all along, but after some drivers and code, the ROV is now able to be controlled additionally by multiple wireless controllers. Nice to no longer be cord bound to the control
The Cave Rover Project Update: More precious then gold….apparently. Up today installing the first pair of Boca Bearings into the Cave ROVer to evaluate their performance. These tiny little gems are salt water, chemical and corrosion resistant, specialty x904/Ceramic and rather pricey,
The Cave Rover Project Sticker spotted showing some love from England! On case of Combat Robot Fighter Kev Baxter, Thank for the support my friend! You too can show the love with a Cave Rover Sticker, available at CaveRover.com, or by making
The Cave ROVer Project Update: Play Ball! The ROV Sediment Sampler is completed. Quick (4) stainless bolt attachment, maintains standard gripper functionality, while adding a 333ml scoop sampler, fabricated in hydrophobic, environmentally safe carbon reinforced materials. For use in environmental sediment research,
The Cave ROVer Update: Who wants icecream! And 18 hours later, we have the the first half of the sentiment sampler prototype. Came out beautifully, perfect fit and bolted right on. The second half should be fabricated by this time tomorrow. Then