FOIAWEAR — CHARLIE THE ROBOT FISH / Mid-Century UUV Tee

FOIAWEAR / ARCHIVE SERIES 033 — CHARLIE THE ROBOT FISH

CIA's Office of Advanced Technologies and Programs built an unmanned underwater vehicle shaped like a fish — and named it Charlie. The design brief was to study aquatic robot technology against a hard list of requirements: speed, endurance, maneuverability, depth control, navigational accuracy, autonomy and communications.

Charlie was created to collect water samples without being detected. Everything it needed was packed into the body — a pressure hull, a ballast system and a communications system — with the propulsion system in the tail. It was driven by an operator using a wireless line-of-sight radio handset.

The vehicle measured 61 × 28 × 18 centimetres.

The artwork is a mid-century graphic treatment of the vehicle — simplified shapes, a limited four-colour palette and a strong silhouette. It is a stylised interpretation, not a photograph, technical drawing or blueprint.

Offered in twelve garment colours: the artwork carries light typography on dark garments (Black, Navy, Graphite, Pepper, Espresso, Sapphire) and dark typography on light garments (Moss, Chambray, Mustard, Butter, Light Green, White).

The QR code on the front opens the CIA Museum's artifact page for the Robot Fish “Charlie”, the source for everything above: https://www.cia.gov/legacy/museum/artifact/robot-fish-charlie/

Garment: Comfort Colors 1717 garment-dyed t-shirt. Heavyweight 6.1 oz/yd² (206.8 g/m²), 100% ring-spun US cotton, pre-shrunk, relaxed fit, double-needle stitched with no side seams and a sewn-in label. Sizes S–4XL. Printed on the front at 300 DPI; plain back. The main artwork prints at 10 × 10 in and the QR at 1.8 × 1.8 in.

Care: machine wash cold, inside out, with like colours. Tumble dry low. Do not iron directly on the printed area.

FOIAWEAR is an independent brand and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the Central Intelligence Agency, the United States government, or any other government or agency.