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Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

arstechnica.com

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Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#361

Post by aerio »

OJFord wrote: post #126
martin_ wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that the BBC is funded primarily by what's known as a "TV License"[0] in the UK - I think it's entirely possible they could probably increase ads or something for international viewers but understand why it isn't their area of focus [0] https://www.bbc.com/aboutthebbc/governance/licencefee

> Note that the BBC is funded primarily by what's known as a "TV License"[0] in the UK Well, as 'TV Licence ', since that's the spelling of the noun outside the US ;)

Oi m8 U got a loicense for that tv?

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#362

Post by kiririn »

cm2187 wrote: post #49
srmarm wrote: post #3

The US Navy uses an Xbox 360 controller in active service [0] Mass market has a lot of R&D to leverage so it makes sense. Nothing to say this is the cause of the fault and probably going to be more reliable than something hand rolled. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/19/16333376/us-navy-military...

The controller itself is probably reliable enough, like any cheap keyboard on amazon. I wouldn't want my life to rely on bluetooth though.

If there’s one place I’d bet my life on Bluetooth it’s at the bottom of the ocean with absolutely no other signals of any kind

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#363

Post by joshspankit »

hunson_abadeer wrote: post #341
rwmj wrote: post #46

There's a BBC documentary from last year which I just watched: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0fpz9zw and honestly a lot of it seems quite amateur hour. One of the steering motors was fitted backwards. When they discovered this, at the bottom of the ocean and a few hundred feet from Titanic, the solution they used was to hold the gamepad at right angles to compensate. That time they proceeded with the tour and mad…

Maybe so, but it's easy to say this after the fact. When kludges like this work, we admire "scrappy" and "ingenious" engineers who are finding ways to launch rockets or build submarines or medical devices or whatever for fraction the price. It's only when it blows up that it turns from "ingenuity" into "amateur hour". People who participated in this knew the risks. They fucked up. None of us would have designed a bet…

I just designed a better one while talking this through in the room:

Once you realize that ingenuity is not going to be enough to survive: Seal everyone in, then fake the whole experience with a screen built in to the porthole.

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#364

Post by lost_tourist »

anigbrowl wrote: post #158
rwmj wrote: post #46

There's a BBC documentary from last year which I just watched: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0fpz9zw and honestly a lot of it seems quite amateur hour. One of the steering motors was fitted backwards. When they discovered this, at the bottom of the ocean and a few hundred feet from Titanic, the solution they used was to hold the gamepad at right angles to compensate. That time they proceeded with the tour and mad…

How do you not test this at the bottom of a harbor rather than in prod.

My guess is they didn't sent it down 1000 times under robotic controland then tear it all down and look for damage, stress fractures, or to estimate lifetime. I mean why in the hell weren't there multiple and redundant, independently powered, sonar locators for example? You would be truly amazed how far sound can travel in water.

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#365

Post by Aeolun »

javajosh wrote: post #356
proggy wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is simply unbelievable that the company was even able to get to the point of diving to such depths with humans aboard. If they had encountered a program-destroying but non-catastrophic failure earlier on, it is possible we wouldn't be looking at one of the many horrific outcomes that this incident will likely resolve to. Looking at the accounts reported to date, the OceanGate engineering culture was basically non-…

>It is simply unbelievable that the company was even able to get to the point of diving to such depths with humans aboard. As I get older, I see this sentiment as very naive. The tacit assumption seems to be that there is an agency, a government, an organization, that would review and approve such endeavors. But that's just not how the world works. You can't stop people from going to sea, or sending contraptions to t…

You’d expect companies that sell these kinds of tours for 250k a pop to be vetted though?

If it’s uncle bob in his garage I’d be fine with lack of regulation, but when he starts commercially selling his trips he’d need to pass safety standards.

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#366

Post by reaperman »

javajosh wrote: post #356
proggy wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is simply unbelievable that the company was even able to get to the point of diving to such depths with humans aboard. If they had encountered a program-destroying but non-catastrophic failure earlier on, it is possible we wouldn't be looking at one of the many horrific outcomes that this incident will likely resolve to. Looking at the accounts reported to date, the OceanGate engineering culture was basically non-…

>It is simply unbelievable that the company was even able to get to the point of diving to such depths with humans aboard. As I get older, I see this sentiment as very naive. The tacit assumption seems to be that there is an agency, a government, an organization, that would review and approve such endeavors. But that's just not how the world works. You can't stop people from going to sea, or sending contraptions to t…

There’s a difference between Jacques Cousteau building a janky submarine rig for himself vs. Creating a business model of selling tickets to random strangers on that janky submarine.

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#367

Post by AHOHA »

mmkos wrote: post #347
AHOHA wrote: post #327

What’s wrong with Logitech controller? It’s good and reliable, I use it in the drone platform I built (in addition to xbox/ps4/ps5 controllers) and we flew the drone from the other half of this planet, this is like saying “oh your tank/car/whatever steering wheel or this component is only $150 so it’s bad!!”, that’s the idea of engineering, find/make reliable pieces at an affordable price, guess that contractor if th…

I think you're missing the point. When making these design decisions, you have to ask 'what can go wrong, and what is the implication of that?'. In your example, you can replace the controller with ease if it breaks, but you can't do that when you are underwater at 4000m below the sea level. Therefore it should at least be designed to be more durable and redundancies should be built in, say a basic console with physi…

>but you can't do that when you are underwater at 4000m below the sea level.

True, but doesn’t that apply to most if not all parts in the submarine? In fact, you can easily pack like 10 of these joysticks in the submarine inventory.

But yeah I agree, I don’t think it’s been a controller issue.

Edit: Unless it was “lost” on purpose, it’s probably the crew doesn’t want to be found in the mean time, and having a billionaire on board also make things more interesting, maybe they are after some treasure hunting stuff.

>This is not the first time the Titan has gotten lost. On Monday, Pogue tweeted that during his report last summer about the Titan, the submersible got lost for a few hours as well (while Pogue was on the surface),

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#368

Post by dmix »

proggy wrote: post #200
rwmj wrote: post #46

There's a BBC documentary from last year which I just watched: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0fpz9zw and honestly a lot of it seems quite amateur hour. One of the steering motors was fitted backwards. When they discovered this, at the bottom of the ocean and a few hundred feet from Titanic, the solution they used was to hold the gamepad at right angles to compensate. That time they proceeded with the tour and mad…

It is simply unbelievable that the company was even able to get to the point of diving to such depths with humans aboard. If they had encountered a program-destroying but non-catastrophic failure earlier on, it is possible we wouldn't be looking at one of the many horrific outcomes that this incident will likely resolve to. Looking at the accounts reported to date, the OceanGate engineering culture was basically non-…

So basically like when a Russia technician installed a sensor upside-down destroying an entire $200 million Proton-M spacecraft https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLnNc_0TnXA

Except there's not whole teams of engineers and checklists to prevent that sort of thing. Nor humans aboard.

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#369

Post by venusenvy47 »

anigbrowl wrote: post #158
rwmj wrote: post #46

There's a BBC documentary from last year which I just watched: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0fpz9zw and honestly a lot of it seems quite amateur hour. One of the steering motors was fitted backwards. When they discovered this, at the bottom of the ocean and a few hundred feet from Titanic, the solution they used was to hold the gamepad at right angles to compensate. That time they proceeded with the tour and mad…

How do you not test this at the bottom of a harbor rather than in prod.

They probably aren't allowed to put this in the water of any country that has watercraft rules. The reporter from CBS reads the form he had to sign, at 2:40 in this video: https://youtu.be/29co_Hksk6o

It says something like "this experimental craft has not been certified by any regulatory body". They probably have to be in international waters to put it in water.

Re: Submarine missing near Titanic used a $30 Logitech gamepad for steering

#370

Post by Aeolun »

hunson_abadeer wrote: post #341
rwmj wrote: post #46

There's a BBC documentary from last year which I just watched: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0fpz9zw and honestly a lot of it seems quite amateur hour. One of the steering motors was fitted backwards. When they discovered this, at the bottom of the ocean and a few hundred feet from Titanic, the solution they used was to hold the gamepad at right angles to compensate. That time they proceeded with the tour and mad…

Maybe so, but it's easy to say this after the fact. When kludges like this work, we admire "scrappy" and "ingenious" engineers who are finding ways to launch rockets or build submarines or medical devices or whatever for fraction the price. It's only when it blows up that it turns from "ingenuity" into "amateur hour". People who participated in this knew the risks. They fucked up. None of us would have designed a bet…

> None of us would have designed a better submarine

I dunno. I would never go with wireless over cabled, certainly not as my primary steering method, and it sure as hell wouldn’t be the only method onboard to control the thing.

Maybe it’s better if these things are build by paranoid instead of adventurous people?

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