Hi, I’m Matthew Luebke. This summer, I worked on STRIDE, a seafloor exploration quadruped robot developed in collaboration with the Office of Naval Research. The project aims to design an autonomous underwater robot capable of traversing uneven terrain up to 10 meters deep while collecting and transmitting environmental data. The robot will be towed by an undersea glider to enable long-distance deployments. My role involved refining the existing CAD models to improve modularity and reduce excess buoyancy, ensuring better stability and control during underwater operations. Drawing from bio-inspired legged locomotion, we studied previous robotic designs to optimize our robot’s mechanical structure for robust terrain navigation. I also contributed to hardware testing and iterative prototyping, identifying opportunities to enhance performance and ease of maintenance. Future efforts will focus on further reducing weight, expanding modular capability, and integrating sensors for autonomous data collection and control.