What's frightening is the price we'd pay for somthing like this if you bought it from private industry.... and the price we pay for any sort of ROV (land, air or sea), when the technology to build somthing like this has become so common and cheap (I particularly like the use of the video game controller, I've seen it done a few times already... they're quite durable and somone else has already spent a fortune making them ergonomic)
If we were really smart, and I mean really smart, we (the forces) would make a shopping list of ROVs we wanted, write clear specs for them, and rather then put it to tender, make a public competition out of it. Put up cash prizes for all the winning designs, open it to any group or individual in Canada (There's already a variety of robotics competitions, with the same thing, a written spec, and various schools/groups/individuals build robots to that spec and compete) , put the ROVs through the proving process as part of the "competition" film the whole thing, and when we're done, hand it over to the discovery channel/OLN/any network that will take it, free of charge, as a three season television series.
The end result would be:
- Inovative & cheap new designs
- Fantastic public relations
