Potentual Third Year Product Design Project

Hello Scuba board community, this is my first time on the website but i have already found it very informing and useful. My names Stefan and im a third year product design student at Sussex University. Id like to design something for diving and there is already a lot of information on the forums. As this is my third year project it requires a lot of research. If anyone has time for a chat or wouldn't mind completing a short questionnaire about diving i would appreciate it.

Any ideas or inspiration would also be useful.

Some of the design areas i have considered so far:

Communicating underwater, Keeping track of your buddy, Dive-Nav, boat tracker/communications tool...

The questionnaire should be attached, Thanks for your time.

Come up with a GPS that will work in 30 metres of water. The scuba world will be at your doorstep.

amen!

another thought is the backup lights that are solar powered like we were talking to that guy about 2 or so weeks ago...

BabyDuck:

amen!

another thought is the backup lights that are solar powered like we were talking to that guy about 2 or so weeks ago...

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Solar powered backup lights? Usually when i need my backup light the Solar energy just is not around

Thanks for your help so far, I have been thinking about the underwater GPS for quite some time but since GPS signals cant be received below a few feet of water, perhaps the device can remain on the boat and track your progress on the dive, relaying data to your position. This way both you and the boat will be able to track the dive and can shorten time spent bobbing around in the surf waiting for pick-up?

I have also been thinking about communicating underwater, i have never used a full face mask/reg and im sure there not cheap. A simple layout of a user interface on a dive computer like device could contain a selection of queries and replies allowing buddies to communicate. Like a database of sentences that can be selected from topics, (Fish, Equipment, Problems, Social, etc.).

The problem with things like that is that they take your attention away from the dive, which is never a good thing as its always so short

Any feedback is much appreciated, thanks Scubaboard

Regards,

Stefan

Michael_Lambert:

Solar powered backup lights? Usually when i need my backup light the Solar energy just is not around

Click to expand...

the idea was a light that stores solar energy for underwater use, kinda like solar powered calculators can work in the dark for a good long time - you silly person!

Hi SubStefan,

How about an enhanced underwater vision system?

As you know, water absorbs red light more than orange, orange more than yellow, etc.. As you can see from the attached figure, water absorption falls off when you move past red and into the near infrared (NIR) - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/72/Water_absorption_spectrum.png . What this means is that NIR light sources will penetrate further than a visible flashlight, and you will be able to see NIR light better (as compared to a detector with similar sensitivity in the visible).

Both NIR light sources and detectors are commercially available, efficient, and relatively cheap. In fact, vis-NIR light amplifying goggles are army "night vision" devices. Technical challenges to overcome would be:

1. Pressure resistant and waterproof to, say, 220 feet;
2. Easy to mount on conventional facemasks;
3. Automatically adjusts to ambient light conditions such that you don't burn the device out when activated at the surface;
4. Can be mounted and removed underwater;
5. Small and lightweight.

Also, cheap and easily (later) integrated into a hoseless computer.

As an aside, incandescent flashlights emit strongly in the visible and NIR, so these goggle should enable you to spot someone diving at night better than your unaided eye.

Military night-vision goggles do exist and some are submersible, though none are optimized for diving - at least, not the ones that you or I can buy.

Addendum: Longer wavelengths scatter less than do shorter wavelengths (aside: scattering is different from absorption). Thus, NIR should penetrate turbid waters better than do visible wavelengths.

Windshield wipers on a divemask?


To the nondiving community, sounds good I bet.....

How often do you back up? Do you also need to go beep, beep, beep?