US hobbyists build underwater drone

Glenbrook, Nevada

A VAST, largely unexplored world is being opened by hobbyists piloting robotic submarines capable of travelling hundreds of feet below the surface of lakes, rivers and oceans.

Styling themselves as citizen scientists, two young engineers, Eric Stackpole and David Lang, have created OpenROV, a small startup based in Berkeley, California, that builds submarine drone kits. They hope to create a mirror image of the airborne drone craze.

This month, the OpenROV researchers took over a vacation home here and turned it into a command centre for the maiden dive of a prototype of the next version of their Trident submarine. The sub explored the wreck of the SS Tahoe, a turn-of-the-last-century steamer that now lies less than half a mile (0.8 km) offshore in depths up to almost 500 feet (152 m) below the surface of …