- sketch -
Supported by childhood memories of the game with the orange and the wrapper (see description); the first tests were held with a card board box, some scrap wood and the only three robot casters that were around. Multidirectional movement is so much fun.!

- technical -
The biggest challenge was the mechanical part of the brake system. In order to lift the whole iceberg of its 4 wheels, the surface had to be quite large. The advantage that came with it is that more wet suite material was touching the floor, which kept it from sliding in any direction. Click the stars for a short movie.

The selected servo motor (hitec HS72580) turned out to be very efficient. The whole wooden structure is pretty heavy and even after the battery size (not shown in the pictures) got doubled in size, the motor functioned amazingly well.! Never measured accurately, the weight should be close to 8 pounds.

- the board -
Controlled by a big 16F877A, an accelerometer measured the intensity of the movement in order to trigger the servo to move to a specific destination. Both the LCD and the XBee (zigbee module) allows for debugging in specific situations. Although not used for Tortuga, the PCB is designed to contain an ultrasonic transmitter and receive to measure the distance between two icebergs; using it in combination with the zigbee modules.

- the icebergs -
The icebergs are formed with scrap wood onto a wooden base that can easily slide over the brake system. White paint, a lot of glue and a few nails hold the whole structure together.