How I Got Started

I've always been interested in anything mechanical or robotic but I got started building Rov's as a result of fishing. I use to do a lot of fishing and I had a fish finder on my boat that would show the depth and contour of the bottom of the lake but I wanted to see what type of actual structure and where the fish were hiding down there. One day while watching the Discovery Channel on tv I saw a show with remote operated vehicles, I started thinking "That's what I need" so I set out to make my own.

Back then I couldn't find any sites about building your own Rov's so I fooled around with different designs for about a year, the hardest part was the thrusters. There was a lot of trial and error involved and lot of failed attempts, I almost gave up a few times but persistence finally paid off and I came up with a design that worked. I got side tracked now and then by different things and it wasn't until I found Rov.net and saw they were running a Rov design competition that I actually finished my first Rov the Stinger.

This site originally started out as my entry page for the competition but I decided to turn it into a web site to share my ideas and help others who where trying to build there own. I have been fooling around with homebuilt rov's in one aspect or another since the mid 90's and have been running this site since 1998. I registered Homebuiltrovs.com in August 2003 and have been updating it any time I work on anything new.

-Steve

All Information, Pictures, and Material is copyright © 1998-2009 by Stephen Thone and may not be used for any personal or commercial purposes without the consent of the author. All rights reserved. The Author makes no guarantees or warranties as to the accuracy or completeness of, or results to be obtained from accessing and using the Information herein.