I can't precisely place where my interest in submarines started. I think it started after watching Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, but early James Bond movies and some Tom Swift books probably played a role. In college, I really enjoyed the character of Hagbard Celine from The Illuminatus Trilogy. Like Captain Nemo, he lives and works from an incredible submarine.

But maybe the interest didn't start with submarines, but with what lays under the sea. It's one of the last places on Earth with undiscovered secrets. You can pick almost any point on land and use Google Earth to see what's there. Heck, you could probably get driving directions to that spot. You don't have that for points under the ocean. It feels like adventure lurks down there. Submarines might be interesting to me because they are the only way to get down there.

The design and construction of an underwater drone is full of interesting engineering challenges. Down in the ocean's depths it's dark, the pressure is crushing, underwater currents can move at surprising speed, it's full of plants and animals, and it's wet. Building a device that can reliably operate in that environment isn't particularly easy.

I want to build an underwater drone that can be controlled from the ocean's surface. I want it to be able to dive to a depth of 300 meters. The pressure at that depth is around 30 atmospheres. In order to be controllable, the drone will need to be able to maneuver in all directions. In order for the operator to operate, it will need a real-time camera feed and lights. And, because just looking can get boring, it should have some means of picking things up and bringing them back up to the surface.