University of Alberta ARVP

03/06/2026

Thanks to for hosting us at the Maarifa STEAM presentation last Thursday. We are grateful for the opportunity to connect with our community and help inspire youth that are curious about the field of robotics. ARVP looks forward to the events to come!

11/29/2021

Our mechanical team is forwarding multiple design projects. We’ve printed the bottom camera enclosure, and torpedo designs are awaiting water cutting. Furthermore, an automated balancing mechanism and claw adjustments are nearing the end of concept/design review stages. Looking forward, the mechanical team is also collecting an array of new projects for 2021/2022. Current focuses include a cooling system, structural support for new electrical additions and actuating the torpedoes."

11/23/2021

General Updates: Safety protocol documentation has been completed and has been approved by the university. Work sessions will still be primarily online due to current COVID restrictions. However, software and mechanical sessions are back to hybrid. For more information about each team's work session schedules, please feel free to contact the team leads to get more specific information.

As the design continues to evolve, pool tests (on Auri) are ongoing. These pool tests provide us a great opportunity to test our components and code in action.

We had a great start to the year and showcased our robot to University students and faculty members at Clubs Fair and Engg Carnival. To all the new members, we are happy to have all of you on board. We look forward to working with you and enhancing your university experience!

09/21/2021

The Autonomous Robotic Vehicle Project (ARVP) invites you to attend their Annual General Meeting. Build upon your current engineering abilities and apply them to novel problems as we continue designing a new Autonomous Underwater Vehicle. Join us on September 23rd at 5:30 pm (MDT) on Youtube here: https://youtu.be/RQdxNzCELkc.

The team looks forward to seeing you there!

Website: https://arvp.org/Email: [email protected]: https://www.instagram.com/uofa.arvp/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UofA.ARVP

07/19/2021

And Now We Wait | ARVP July 2021 Newsletter -

Just like that, RoboSub 2021 is over! In what some would call “typical engineering fashion,” we submitted our deliverables hours before the deadline, with cheers and claps ensuing for the next few moments afterwards! This submission resulted in an overwhelming feeling of relief and satisfaction ...

06/28/2021

Dhruba Nil Ghosh
Dhruba Nil Ghosh joined the Admin Team in the 2020/2021 year.

What year and discipline are you in?
- I am in my second year of mechanical engineering.

Why did you go into your program?
- I am a massive car fanatic, with a particular inclination towards the JDM class of vehicles. With a particular passion for motorsport and automobile development, it feels like mechanical engineering had to be the way to go!

What do you want to do as a career?
- Although this is a very long shot, I want to be in the development team for the 2050 ford gt, the legendary car that defines motorsport rivalry with Ferrari! But for starters, I would like to be involved with motorsport and automotive development.

What are you looking forward to most for when COVID is over?
- I would like to finally obtain my license in Alberta and take my car out for a spin! In addition, I would love to meet new people and finally be able to make the memories I had embarked to Alberta for!

What is a fun fact/skill about yourself?
- I am a massive diecast collector! I collect miniature models of cars that intrigue me. From skylines to RX-7s, you name it! However, by far the most valuable car in my collection is a limited edition Toyota AE-86!

06/28/2021

Stevie Desmarais
Stevie Desmarais joined the Mechanical Team in the 2019/2020 year.

What year and discipline are you in?
- I'm in my third year of mechanical engineering.

Why did you go into your program?
- Mechanical seemed like the obvious choice for me as I have always been a fan of classical physics and dynamics. I also liked the idea of learning a little bit of everything to piece together the bigger picture.

What do you want to do as a career?
- I want to work in robotics design, although I'm not quite sure about the types of robots I would like to work with yet. Ideally, I would like to be involved in the entire design and building process rather than just a small portion of it.

What are you looking forward to most for when COVID is over?
- I am very excited about the return of live music.

What is a fun fact/skill about yourself?
- My favourite type of spider is the Brazilian Black Tarantula; they're so gorgeous and fun to hold.

06/28/2021

Robosub 2021 is coming soon. The team has roughly two weeks to finish assembling our deliverables for the upcoming competition. The pressure is on!

Usually, at this time of the year, the team would be frantically finalizing flight arrangements down to San Diego. But alas, another competition from home.

The theme of this year’s competition is 23 Skidoo! This American slang phrase rose to popularity in the early 20th century. It generally refers to any of the following: leaving quickly, being forced to leave quickly by someone else, or taking advantage of a favourable opportunity to leave.

Similar to last year, we are evaluated upon the quality of the team video, which focuses on a technical topic (we chose the Hull Design), the details of our technical report, and the presentation of our team website.

05/08/2021

Yee Wei Chai

Yee Wei Chai joined ARVP back in 2018 and is currently part of the Admin Team.

What year and discipline are you in?
- I am currently a 4th-year Electrical Engineering Co-op student.

Why did you go into your program?
- I started with wanting to work on robotics-related stuff, so my original choice was mechanical engineering. But as I started learning to program, I found that I enjoyed it, surprisingly. So, I decided to try out a short summer internship in an electronics company. That changed my choice to electrical engineering right before we were supposed to submit our final decision!

What do you want to do as a career?
- I would like to be an embedded design engineer since I will work with both the hardware and the software parts together. Also, since I will have to use different components all the time for different projects with different requirements, this job will give me an opportunity to learn constantly, and I am sure that will make my life very interesting even at work!

What are you looking forward to most for when COVID is over?
- I am a little bit of an introvert, so I would prefer staying home, to be honest. Still, I really want to just hang out with my friends since I have not seen some of them for almost a year now; I really miss them. Also, being able to meet more people and café hopping with friends would be great!

What is a fun fact/skill about yourself?
- I greatly enjoy learning new languages! Whenever I watch a new show in a foreign language, I will get very tempted to learn the language. With COVID right now, I can start learning some of it! Currently, I am learning Korean and French, and hopefully, I will be able to learn Italian, Japanese, German, Spanish and even Hungarian one day! I might even end up being a translator instead of an engineer!

05/08/2021

Software Updates

The software team focused heavily on acquiring knowledge that will ultimately aid in the long-term success of ARVP. These topics include: mapping, atmospheric turbulence estimation, transform management in ROS (Robot Operating System), and EKF's (Extended Kalman Filter) to better understand the localization system.
A lot of work also went into improving our team's simulator software, Gazebo. This month, the software team got some work done on improving the planner and coordinate system, while also improving upon Gazebo's documentation. Overall, the team continues to improve Gazebo and is making good progress in acquiring useful knowledge to help the team for years to come.

05/02/2021

Jemima Okanlawon

Jemima Okanlawon joined the Electrical Team in the 2020/2021 year.

What year and discipline are you in?
- I am finishing up my second year of Electrical Engineering Co-op.

Why did you go into your program?
- I decided to go into electrical because I am very fascinated by electronics and robotics. When I was younger, I disassembled various electronic devices like RC cars to see the circuitry inside, and I always thought it was so cool. I took a few robotics classes in high school and loved it, so I was very excited when I found out I could build robots for a living.

What do you want to do as a career?
- I would love to design electronic gadgets as a career. Currently, I am most interested in embedded systems and PCB design. Still, I'm continually gaining interest in many different subfields in electrical engineering the more I learn about them.

What are you looking forward to most for when COVID is over?
- I am really looking forward to being back on campus and hanging out with friends. I also miss playing intramural sports, including basketball, floor hockey, and ultimate, so I'm looking forward to that as well.

What is a fun fact/skill about yourself?
- A fun fact about me is I can solve a Rubik's cube in under 30 seconds. My personal best is 22 seconds, but my current average is around 28-35 seconds.

04/27/2021

The electrical team is wrapping up some of their current projects like the torpedo revamp while also setting eyes on the new robot tasks. These projects include redoing the internal environment board, the battery monitoring board, the actuator board, and redesigning the power converters. Members are returning to basics by planning the PCB layout for the boards mentioned above.

The team also focuses on looking into a new electronics board design (for the new robot) to make them smaller as to conserve space and weight.

Electrical members are eager to return to campus and work safely together to progress on pressing deliverables, including the implementation of the acoustic modem.