WASUB is a Dreamteam consisting of members of the TU Delft, the VU Amsterdam and the Hague University of Applied Sciences. It is a team of more than 25 students originating from all kind of different studies. Together they have one goal: Design, build and race a human-powered submarine.
A human-powered submarine, is, as the name suggests, a submarine that gets all of the power required for propulsion from a human pilot. The pedalling movement of the pilot is then converted into propulsion.
In order to make the submarine as efficient as possible a lot of effort is put into the hydrodynamics during the design phase. As a result, the submarine is very compact, which gives the pilot very little space. For the pilot, this can be very claustrophobic and thus the pilot is specially trained to feel as comfortable as possible in the submarine (but also to be as fast as possible, of course!).
Every year a new submarine is designed, built and eventually raced in the annual International Submarine Races. During these races, different teams from universities from all around the globe compete against each other to find out who built the best submarine.
In recent years WASUB had great success. In 2016 WASUB VI beat all the other universities during the eISR. WASUB V currently owns the world-speed record for single person human-powered submarines, which was set during the 13th ISR, where they reached a speed of 7.42 knots (13.74 km/h). A speed two times as fast as an Olympic swimmer.
A human-powered submarine, is, as the name suggests, a submarine that gets all of the power required for propulsion from a human pilot. The pedalling movement of the pilot is then converted into propulsion.
In order to make the submarine as efficient as possible a lot of effort is put into the hydrodynamics during the design phase. As a result, the submarine is very compact, which gives the pilot very little space. For the pilot, this can be very claustrophobic and thus the pilot is specially trained to feel as comfortable as possible in the submarine (but also to be as fast as possible, of course!).
Every year a new submarine is designed, built and eventually raced in the annual International Submarine Races. During these races, different teams from universities from all around the globe compete against each other to find out who built the best submarine.
In recent years WASUB had great success. In 2016 WASUB VI beat all the other universities during the eISR. WASUB V currently owns the world-speed record for single person human-powered submarines, which was set during the 13th ISR, where they reached a speed of 7.42 knots (13.74 km/h). A speed two times as fast as an Olympic swimmer.