SeaCharger Solar-powered Autonomous Boat
Maker Faire Bay Area 2016
MAKERS
Damon McMillan
Damon McMillan has worked on unmanned aircraft and surface vehicles for 14 years, as both an aeronautical and mechanical engineer. He loves the challenge of working on difficult projects with only limited resources.
JT Zemp
Troy Arbuckle
Matt Stowell
SeaCharger aims to be the first unmanned surface vehicle (USV) to cross an ocean on solar power alone. The Seacharger project started in a humble garage but it's going to take to the high seas on a trip from California to Hawaii in early 2016.
What inspired you to make this project?:
Many years ago a group of students somewhere on the east coast took a camera and hung it off a weather balloon and took a picture from the edge of space. Their total budget was just a few hundred dollars. I love the idea of being able to accomplish such an amazing task with so few resources! Then more recently I learned that various groups were trying to send unmanned sailboats across the Atlantic, without much luck. I figured this was a great challenge and decided I must try, only instead of a sailboat, I wanted to make it solar-powered.
