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I built an ROV to solve missing person cases

suanto.com

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Re: I built an ROV to solve missing person cases

#61

Post by jonah »

nmstoker wrote: post #55
tired_star_nrg wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why is it asking me to sign in to read this?

It was fine when I read the first five or so installments, then I got a random authentication request, which I couldn't see the cause of, but seems like it may have been triggered when I chucked an image. My guess is that during the time I was viewing the site, the owner decided they would lock it down to people who were authenticated. Shame as I was just getting to the point of progress!

Curious. Maybe it was hugged to death and he or his ISP locked it down to cut down on bandwidth. Or maybe decided he didn't want a bunch of people reading it right now?

Re: I built an ROV to solve missing person cases

#62

Post by resolutebat »

m463 wrote: post #47
scrozier wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is my futile mission in life to help people understand that initials, acronyms, and abbreviations are real barriers to communication.

Help stamp out TLAs. EDIT: also https://gist.github.com/klaaspieter/12cd68f54bb71a3940eae5cd...

YM "TDM TLA". HTH, HAND!

Re: I built an ROV to solve missing person cases

#63

Post by sleepybrett »

cryptonector wrote: post #23
dang wrote: post #2

As you can see, this is long: https://suanto.com/2024/06/06/the-time-I-built-an-ROV-02/ https://suanto.com/2024/06/06/the-time-I-built-an-ROV-03/ https://suanto.com/2024/06/06/the-time-I-built-an-ROV-04/ https://suanto.com/2024/06/06/the-time-I-built-an-ROV-05/ https://suanto.com/2024/06/06/the-time-I-built-an-ROV-06/ https://suanto.com/2024/06/06/the-time-I-built-an-ROV-07/ https://suanto.com/2024/06/06/the-time-I-b…

TFA is nothing short of amazing and absolutely deserves attention. The author (and his brother) built (from scratch!) a side-scan sonar remote controlled boat and an ROV (a remote controlled submersible) with a camera and a light, and with this they found TWO missing persons' cars under water. Real products of these sorts would have cost enormous amounts of money, but they built their own for the cost of parts and la…

You can buy similar off the shelf, the way these diy projects go it may have been cheaper in the long run, but more power to him. It can be hard to drop 5 grand on a kitted out submarine when you think you might be able to do it for 2k in parts in your own labor, but in my experience that 2k in parts starts to creep up as you accidentally destroy things, determine that the things you bought and can't return won't quite work, etc.

There is a guy that has been using one of the off the shelf ones in the lakes around seattle (https://www.youtube.com/@rctestflight/videos), he's also built a bunch of other rc stuff including a few autonomous boats that he takes into the lakes as well as the sound.

Re: I built an ROV to solve missing person cases

#64

Post by resolutebat »

neontomo wrote: post #49

Without a doubt the most interesting article I've read here. If they didn't sink in a car, am I correct to assume the bodies would have surfaced eventually?

Highly unlikely, since I presume all car windows would have been closed (winter in Finland is COLD) and they would have been strapped in with seatbelts. It's difficult to escape from a submerged car even in the best of circumstances, and being suddenly plunged into near-freezing water in the black of night is far from that.

Re: I built an ROV to solve missing person cases

#65

Post by KennyBlanken »

Frankly, my takeaway here is that police detectives in Finland are poorly trained and not very good at analytical thinking.

In the first case, if they'd reasoned things out like the author did, they could have simply had someone walk alongside the road that he was likely to be on, they would have seen pretty obvious evidence of damage to the ground / foliage, gone for a closer look, and seen all the broken car bits.

Add to that the author getting the cold shoulder when he called the police and said "hey, can you send a detective over, I found a car in the water and it matches the vehicle in the missing person case nearby", and they basically told him to fuck off - and then finally showed up when the fire brigade pestered them a second time.

Re: I built an ROV to solve missing person cases

#66

Post by sleepybrett »

octernion wrote: post #15

having built autonomous ROVs in college, i'm absolutely astonished at what this person accomplished essentially on their own. they are so finicky and piloting them is a whole skill set on its own. and, what perseverance; it really did read like a detective story and what a good job distilling the cases down to their basics. what a cool read and an absolute triumph of an accomplishment.

There is quite a bit of open source info out there on how to build these things these days. I think the quadcopter/'drone' boom kinda opened up the market for rc hobbies in general. I've seen guys with UHF fpv setups on planes fly for miles and miles and maintain signal. With purpose built antennas they can go even further. The legality is .. suspect at best, but shrug.

Re: I built an ROV to solve missing person cases

#67

Post by nosrepa »

tired_star_nrg wrote: post #54
jonah wrote: post #12

The quest he mentions as inspiration - Tom Mahood's "The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans" - is a fascinating read and worth your time. https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hu... I first read it seven years ago and similar to the author, it inspired me to join my local Search & Rescue team which has been incredibly rewarding. I highly recommend doing that to anyone who wants to combine a love of…

why is it asking me to sign in to read this?

The site was posted here and probably other social media in the last day or so. More than likely it's to prevent the site from getting hugged to death.

Re: I built an ROV to solve missing person cases

#68

Post by rblatz »

HanClinto wrote: post #14

Absolutely fantastic read. The author got nerd-sniped HARD by these missing-person cases and his approach and accomplishments are inspiring, to say the least. Very well done!

For the first case I kept wondering why they needed so much complicated technology. The water they’re searching isn’t all that deep a cheap canoe and a long pole with a go pro, and a magnet on a rope would have been equally effective, cheaper, and faster. But for the second case that they needed the be able to search a much wider area and the tire tracks likely wouldn’t have been visible in on a camera. Really cool project though.

For the ROV I was wondering why not build something heavier than water but have it on lines attached to buoys, then to go up/down you just climb or down the ropes. Not as maneuverable but not certain if it’s significantly less maneuverable.

Re: I built an ROV to solve missing person cases

#69

Post by rblatz »

IncreasePosts wrote: post #19

Awesome story! The first case had me thinking "These nerds are wasting their time...why not just a gopro on a long stick". But hearing about the details of the second story, it would have been impossible without the sonar and ROV!

Ha, same I even posted basically the same thing higher in the thread.

Re: I built an ROV to solve missing person cases

#70

Post by fnordpiglet »

I throughly enjoyed reading the entire story. However I found it strange he sort of ended with “they searched for the car and asked us to leave.” The first one they got thanked profusely. But at no point did the author ever claim to have definitively found the car or the body. It’s humble but almost oddly so. Anyway great story.
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