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OA-004

FASt Lab Robotic Fish Research

Measured real hydrodynamic drag on lab-built robotic fish hardware.

Contributed to research on robotic fish systems, experimental hardware, and fluid-structure interaction. This included water tunnel work with a hydrofoil mounted on a load cell to measure drag, plus CAD work for an adapter and fin used in water tunnel testing.

Role

Undergraduate research contributor

Organization

University of Florida · FASt Lab

Experimental fluidsWater tunnelLoad cell testingCADInstrumentationData analysisRapid prototyping
Hydrofoil setup mounted on a load cell in a FASt Lab water tunnel
Hydrofoil setup mounted on a load cell in a water tunnel to measure drag.

Measuring drag in the water tunnel

I contributed to research on robotic fish systems and fluid-structure interaction. A big part of that was experimental: mounting a hydrofoil on a load cell in the water tunnel to directly measure drag, with the instrumentation, setup, and data collection done on real hardware.

CAD test hardware

To run the experiments I designed the adapter and fin used in the water tunnel, modeling the geometry so the test hardware would mount cleanly and support repeatable drag measurements.

Adapter and fin CAD designed for water tunnel testing.
Fin geometry modeled to support experimental testing.
Adapter detail used to connect the test hardware for water tunnel experiments.