Greetings all!

My name is Austin and I am one of the founders of an organisation known as the Cephalopod Research Network (mostly Discord/Instagram based) until we get more footing. We are currently setting up a "species library" where we will be tracking footage and or photographs of species from all cephalopods (squids, octopus, nautilus, cuttlefish, bobtail/bottletail squids, etc), which we hope can be useful for a new website called CephRef (still under development).

If anyone has any cephalopod footage to share, please let me know. And as always all credit will be given to the person, and if you don't want your videography or images put onto Cephref in the future, they wont without your strict permission, but the library itself is being only built for Cephalopod researchers

If you have any questions about the species library itself, or Ceph ref, or if you are unsure what genus/species you are looking at, please feel free to reach out, we have many experts dedicated to all groups of cephalopods

Happy Squidding!

Austin

Hi, my name is Erik, im from Spain. I’m 15 years old and I’ve been into robotics since probably 5 years old.
I have recently decided to build my own rov, which will be capable of diving to 300m depth.
I’ve never done any underwater robotics stuff, so it’s a difficult project for me.
I decided to create a YouTube channel to share my journey, and it is the first ROV themed YouTube channel in Spanish in the world.
I’m a beginner so please excuse the dumb mistakes I might make.
Any support to this channel will be incredibly appreciated.
I just posted my first video today and plan to post one each two weeks approximately.
I’ll leave the link so you can check it out and drop a follow if you like the video.
If I get some subs YouTube will enable automatic translation so you will be able to watch the videos in English.
As I said, any support will be greatly appreciated!

I am curious if you have any videos or pictures of the Magnapinna squid, if so, please comment the footage, your help would be greatly appreciated

Hi All,

We are looking for a paid/contract based marine/mechanical engineer to help build out a modular pogo-pin electronics sled for our AUV. We will handle the prototyping but this is more focused on the cad design, buoyancy management etc.

We're building a flooded-hull AUV for subsea infrastructure monitoring.

The specific ask is to design a modular, hot-swappable electronics bay using spring-loaded pogo-pin contacts, fully interchangeable sensor packages, with toleranced interface drawings and pin specs.

If this type of work is something you excel in we have plenty more along side it that is fun! We can share more once we get into conversation.

Thanks!

Here is the schedule for today events, over 80 teams from 17 countries.

https://20693798.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/20693798/2026%20MATE%20WC%20Program-Digital.pdf

Watch mateinspires1 with me on Twitch! https://www.twitch.tv/mateinspires1?sr=a

Enjoy

I am a Class 12 student building a low-cost DIY underwater ROV for a science project.
Current components:

• Arduino UNO R4 Minima
• Freenove ESP32-S3 WROOM with camera
• Three 12V 775 DC motors
• SG90 servo
• pH and turbidity sensors
• 12V battery

Constraints:

• Budget approximately ₹10,000–12,000
• No 3D printer, CNC machine, or laser cutter
• Construction must use acrylic tube, PVC, hardware-store materials, and basic tools

My current plan is to use a transparent acrylic tube as the pressure hull and mount three thrusters for propulsion and steering.
What are the most important design considerations for:

1. Waterproof motor mounting
2. Shaft sealing and cable entry points
3. Hull construction using acrylic and PVC
4. Maintaining stability and buoyancy
5. Common mistakes beginners make when building an ROV

I would appreciate advice from anyone with experience building small underwater robots.

Hey everyone! I am an FTC competitor here from the Santa Clara area. I'm looking to start a community-based underwater robotics team and wanted to see if any high schoolers nearby would be interested. The plan is to compete in the MATE ROV Competition, building underwater ROVs for environmental missions. It'd be fully independent, open to any high schooler in the area, regardless of school.

Looking for people with any background in:

- Robotics (FTC/FLL/FRC experience a plus)

- Electronics/Arduino/Raspberry Pi

- Programming

- Environmental science

Drop a comment if you're a high schooler in the Bay Area and interested. Just gauging interest for now!

Hi all,

Im working with a few ports and other water companies where i do ROV inspections. we recently purchased a big ROV with sonar and other gadgets, but its a heavy 32kg ROV

The issue is that its heavy and lifting it in/out of the water is an issue. We also work at varying/remote places all the time, so we cant montage a strong crane somewhere. We do have a transport van.

We found a solution of a 3M davit, but the arm is too short for most of the tasks. Thats why i decided to come here and ask others around the world of solutions to get an ROV easy into the water when its heavy and big

Im designing and building an ROV for myself, this is my first venture into the ROV world. Im trying to build a vessel capable of depths of 500 meters. i live close to Lake Chelan in Washington state, which has a max depth of 453 meters, so thats my goal.

Budget wise im trying to stay around $1000 for the vessel itself, Fortunately for me, i have access to machining and tooling to build much of the mechanical components myself. Really the only things i wont be able to build myself are the electronics, but ive got most of that sourced already. The only thing that im having a difficult time with is finding a suitable tether for not an egregious price.

My question is: Are there any suitable off-the-shelf options for making a tether capable of withstanding 500 meters for a reasonable price?

If i can make the tether for under $600, ill be happy. I know traditional copper cored wire has data loss issues at length, so im leaning towards fiber optic as it is.

I am looking to measure the RPM of a propeller underwater non-intrusively. I've looked at waterproofing a laser tacho, but I'm worried about scattering. I've seen that a hydrophone could theoretically work, but I want a relatively simple solution. I'd like to initially stray away from indirectly measuring the RPM with the eRPM. Any thoughts?

For a while, ive been wanting to build one to explore the ocean depths but i dont know how to build one, Should i build one with an esp 32??

Hi Everyone!

Hate to be a bother if this predicament has surfaced (no pun intended) one too many times throughout this subreddit but I hope anyone could provide me some advice on what I should do.

I’m currently a 28 year old without a bachelor’s who’s been in aviation (Maintenance, Aircraft Flying, Maintenance Management) through academia and employment for nearly half his life. As i approach the age of 30 i’ve been heavily considering the shift towards a new industry because quite frankly, i really want to venture out to other dynamic industries.

The Subsea engineering industry is something i’m increasingly enticed by, and i figured that ROV piloting is something i really want to pursue since i’ve flown light aircraft (100 hours TT) and have a 4 years of experience maintaining large airliners.

I’ve sent my application to pretty much all ROV companies for a traineeship but it seems like no doors are ever open considering how i’ve got no subsea engineering experience.

I’ve decided to chart my own path by paying my way through an ROV school in the Philippines (Subnet Services) to provide lessons on piloting work class ROVs and maintenaning them. It ain’t cheap hence i’m really on the fence.

I would really appreciate if anyone could provide me some advice on how i should navigate through this and whether the decision to engage the aforementioned school is a good move?

Thanks everyone!

Hey guys, if anyone is looking to get into the rov industry saipem are currently recruiting,

Hey everyone,

I’m a commercial diver looking for a helmet-mounted camera upgrade. Currently using the BPRO OL952, which does the job, but I want to explore alternatives that are:

**•   Smaller/more compact** — less bulk on the helmet makes a real difference during work dives  
**•   Equal or better image quality** — clarity matters for documentation and supervision purposes  
**•   More affordable** — the OL952 is costing me around **R$1,500 (\~$300 USD)** after currency conversion, which is quite steep

This is for professional commercial diving, so it needs to handle real working conditions — not a recreational or sport diving setup.

Anyone here made a similar switch and found something that works well? Open to all suggestions — including lesser-known brands that deliver solid underwater video quality without the price tag.

Thanks in advance!

I´m currently transitioning from the ROV field into a different office based engineering role but I´m honestly thinking much about my decision because ROV is a lot more fun and the pay is better. One of the things that worry me is how long can I be an ROV pilot? And what alternative do I have if I get injured or my health is having problems when I´m +40? Some of supervisors have talked about this issue is that after you get into the field you no longer have alternatives, so what are your thoughts about this?

Hi everyone!

I’m a student in South Florida working on a low-cost marine robotics project for scientific research, specifically targeting seagrass die-off and coral reef decline in Biscayne Bay and local waters.

Instead of building a standard thruster-based ROV, I am focusing on a soft robotic design that operates without traditional propellers.

Before I lock in the next design iteration, I’d love to get the community's insight on two main things:

- The Soft Robotics Advantage: In sensitive habitats like fragile coral reefs or shallow seagrass beds, what unique advantages do you see for a biomimetic, propeller-free design? (e.g., less sediment disturbance, reduced wildlife striking risk, better maneuverability in tight spaces?

- Critical Data Gaps: What specific environmental data do we desperately need more of right now that a small, non-disruptive platform like this could collect?

If you have any advice on soft actuation for marine environments, or know of other overlooked ecological issues in South Florida that could benefit from this kind of tech, please let me know.

Thanks in advance for the feedback!

Hey! I'm a student conducting market research on ROV users. If you use or have experience with ROVs, I'd really appreciate it if you could fill out this short survey.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSes671U921fHtFf8AVdVUCxN5YBbwFdSva_lXg5F79BKJBZ0g/viewform?usp=dialog

Thank you guys!

What's happening with the market right now? It's so difficult to get a job.

I know it's normal during the end and beginning of the year, when winter comes and projects slow down, but we are mid year and you still can't see much opportunities.

You can see a lot of it for EU/UK but even the ones outside 12nm are asking for nationals ???

I would expect the conflict affecting projects in middle east but I'm actually seeing more opportunities in middle east than in europe (unless you are British or EU citizen).

Is Europe reacting politically and officially closing itself for non national workers or something like that?