Metal Casting Zone

I know i havent been posting much lately, that is because i have been deep in thought.
I have a bad tendancy to jump from one project to another and then to another but this one has my full attention. Allow me to explain a bit.
One of my other hobbies is metal detecting and treasure hunting and I have been doing it for 7 or 8 years, although I have not gotten rich I have made many a great find and I have never lost interest. On a detecting trip to the beach this year I was requested by a man to go find his ring he had lost out in the surf, unfortunately my detector is not water proof so I was unable to go search for it. I talked to him for awile and inquired about the ring and asked for its description. I was shocked to find out it was a Phillies world championship ring valued at 30,000.00 USD. Ok now I beagan wondering how much else had been lost to the sea, and how to get it back. so I hit the drawing board and came up with an Idea, a remote controlled metal detector that could venture out into the ocean, detect metals and recover them. Ok so what do I need to do this? well first things first a metal detector. second thing a platform to cary it under water, third a way to retrieve the item. Right now i am working on a manipulator arm that will be able to pick stuff up and drop it into a basket, from there I will need to make up a dredge pump the suck up sand (and possibly the item) and deposit it into a wire basket, and finally a platform to carry it all.
well i did some sketches and played with some ideas and decided to start building the manipulator arm first. I started the actual build 11-9-09 and here is what i have come up with so far, a few parts are cast but many more are coming up shortly. this is going to be a 2 year project but I will be the first kid on the block to have one [img size=150][/img]

For a 10% recovery fee, I would have wrapped the detector in a plastic bag and jumped in.
Back when I was diving, I recovered a mans wedding ring from a lake here in Ohio. Very muddy, pure luck I found it. I charged him $50 and later found out it was worth over $5000. Oh well, he was a newly-wed and hadn't told his wife for fear of death.

I did scuba and hard hat diving and we made several types of dredges and water guns to move sand and suck stuff up. The last build I started and never finished was a suction dredge to get golf balls out of lakes.

One question. How will the arm know where the item is to pick it up?

One question. How will the arm know where the item is to pick it up?

There will be a small video camera mounted to the manipulator arm that will move with the jaw assembly. The camera has a .003 lux rating which means it can see in total darkness. There will also be a couple different types of lighting, some I/R and some LED's. Visability might be as little as 2' but im pretty sure it will work out.
I know this is a crazy idea but what the heck im going to give it a try.

My inspration http://www.shipwreck.net/g2/gallery2/v/ShipwreckProjects/ss_republic/underwater/?g2_page=2

Your building a robot! I had some drawings of some simple designs I was thinking on building. I'll look around the archives and see if I still have them.

I swear jammer must be related to me somehow lol

Your other brother from a different Mother.

this sounds terrific a1.go for it!! at least you can cast the parts.