Wow... three months of these reports already! Once we get the new UCSD ftp site established for all the story archives, we'll have to add the monthly collected files of these... required reading for newcomers and a good source of detail for Nomadness Notes and the inevitable book.

The past two days have included very little hands-on work, with the exception of AutoCAD and GeoQuery installation in the new Macintosh (including some education on the former courtesy of TJ). I also published a new UCSD help flyer, which will be handed out to interested parties during a BEHEMOTH show-n-tell Monday noonish at the Price Center (helping to promote my Wednesday evening ASME gig in CSB-001). We tried to do it today -- late night last night finishing the flyer, up early to get the printing done, haul bike out to freight elevator...... which was out of order. <sigh>

But there has been a major increment in the materials learning curve! I mentioned the cylinder-molding technique in this series a couple of days ago; yesterday I went to a composites conference at the La Jolla Marriott and spent an hour with Jeff Bootz of Nida-Core, Maury Shepherd of Film Technology, and Mark Livesay of Sunrez. What an interesting group...

Basically, Nida-Core is a polypropylene honeycomb structural material that is obviously perfect for the solar panels on the Microship (forget foam core!). It will be cooler, due to both radiation and convection within the cells, it won't delaminate from crushing, and it has immense strength-to-weight ratio. I have some samples in the lab if you're interested... I just need to get the allowable deflection specs on the solar cells, choose a thickness based on worst-case impact (my body falling from the deck and landing on my rump, probably), then design the longitudinal web structure that will impart ultimate stiffness and also support the hinge.

For the other composite work, the combination of Quick Draw vacuum bag resin transfer molding using Micro Channel films and UV-cured epoxy that can be drawn into the part by the vacuum pump -- with virtually infinite pot life until hitting it with ultraviolet light -- greatly simplifies the whole composite layup process. We have found the tools! I have samples of these products in the lab as well, if you're interested -- also contact info on the companies involved.

That's it for tonight... fried!

LITERATURE RECEIVED:

Film Technology flyer on vacuum bag films

"Ten Years of Light-Curing in UP Resins" by Claus Thiele of BASF

Latest issues of PC Laptop, Portable Computing, Pen, and Mobile Office magazines

Compaq computer literature