The Kayak Era

It was the beginning, the very beginning, and with the clarity of retrospect I see a lot of crazy things. But that's how projects grow... wild dreams are slowly hammered into shapes that can survive in the real world.

In these early days, updates were short and detailed -- targeted toward our small student and volunteer team as well as a few sponsors and friends. Every now and then we threw in a whole-system overview or other high-level document, providing context for newcomers or to the much larger Nomadness mailing list. Each item in the archive is briefly described below, woven into a narrative of the whole era....

THE NOMADNESS NOTES, Issue #22, 6/7/93 -- My excited announcement to the big mailing list that the Microship project had found a home in San Diego... and a full description of the trimaran to be built from three sea kayaks, the first serious incarnation of the project after brief fantasies about using a single giant kayak.

THE NOMADNESS NOTES, Issue #23 -- 7/30/93 -- Rhapsodic overview of life in San Diego and developing relationship with UCSD, followed by a refinement of the trimaran description. This also introduces the "Technomadic Flotilla," an invitation to people to join me in a nomadic aquatic community.

Microship Status 8/4/93 -- I return from SIGGRAPH to find the Linear recumbent bicycle awaiting. At one time, the center hull of this vessel was going to be wrapped around a bicycle for on-water propulsion, convertible to land use. I also describe the eight bulkheaded compartments of the center hull and maunder on for a bit about on-board systems and console screens.

Microship Status 8/5/93 -- Discussion of Ampro PC/104 DOS boards as control system, solar array cooling thoughts, and cardboard mockup.

Microship Status 8/6/93 -- Mounting the Linear recumbent on a wooden stand to measure required knee clearances and fixturing dimensions, comments about foam-core panels, and rising concern about losing my temporary UCSD lab.

Microship Status 8/9/93 -- The concerns are validated! Demolition crews break through my wall only days after another department moved me in (ahhh, academic bureaucracies). Random brainstorming as well.

Microship Status 8/16/93 -- I move into a "temporary" lab (where I ended up staying for 2 years). Schmoozing the yacht-design community in San Diego, early confidence in design of 4-foot-wide, 28-30 foot center hull. Much discussion of overall structure, deck layout, and so on.

Microship Status 8/18/93 -- More hull thoughts, list of control lines, fantasies about remote retraction of the folding solar array.

Microship Status 8/24/93 -- Kayak amas, electric boats, two masts, student projects, and a bit of play...

Microship Status 8/25/93 -- Support from Nelson/Marek Yacht Design and first thoughts on student projects.

Microship Status 8/27/93 -- Building a quarter-scale cardboard model, many thoughts on sleep space, hull compartments, storage, and electronics bays.

September

Microship Status 9/1/93 -- Building Mini-Steve, a model of myself to go with the toy boat. Interesting list of functions that must be supported on the boat, presented as a design spec.

Microship Status 9/2/93 -- Shelter Island yacht scene pilgrimage, ama shape thoughts.

Microship Status 9/3/93 -- More work on cardboard model, development of relationship with Current Designs (kayak builder), hatch design, drainage, cockpit dodger, crossbeam strength, and fantasies of cloning the F-27 Farrier Folding System.

Microship Status 9/9/93 -- I decide to build an actual-size cardboard cockpit model.

Microship Status 9/15/93 -- The cockpit model is complete, and lots of discoveries result. (This was a massive thing, and I spent lots of time sitting in it, crawling around it, and daydreaming... even slept in it one night.) Scaling up to double kayaks as amas. Analysis of capsize recovery. Waterproof pointing device discussion.

Microship Status 9/27/93 -- Back from a week on the road, Nelson/Marek contact shocked by physical size of model, and an idealistic spec: "The Microship must be small enough to easily portage and navigate through tiny rivulets, work well under human power, provide comfortable sleeping accommodations for two as well as a fully-stocked laboratory, be seaworthy under rough conditions, possess high WQ, zip across the water like the wind, and be virtually unbreakable." Also breaking news about Apple sponsorship and other new contacts.

Microship Status 9/29/93 -- Nida-Core, vacuum bagging, cylinder-molding, resins, and other composites education.

october

Microship Status 10/1/93 -- Waterproof keyboards, Kurt Hughes comments that kayaks make lousy amas.

Microship Status 10/8/93 -- More on sealed pointing devices, comments on project organization, student projects looming.

SEA MOSS MICROSHIP Project Overview, 10/9/93 -- A full project design description as conceived at this time. Good contextual background for the status reports...

The Microship Project Catalog, 10/13/93 -- The epic breakdown of control system nodes and subsystems, with a description of each, presented to lure student engineers and other volunteers into getting involved. It worked quite well, as I recall.

Microship Status 10/15/93 -- Marine architecture issues: weight study required, dihedral, ballast chambers, hull shapes, considering custom amas instead of kayaks... and ASCII art of network architecture.

Microship Status 10/19/93 -- Ah, I can't escape management... here we try to figure out how to deal with the rapidly-developing student engineering teams, plus a list of "clearly defined tasks" with which I needed immediate help.

Microship Status 10/23/93 -- Report on work group organization of our Seaweed Canyon storage space, introduction of new volunteers, multihull design approaches, another Shelter Island field trip, brief solar packaging comments.

Microship Status 10/26/93 -- Acks to some volunteers, decision to acquire two Libra double kayaks in hull-only form for the amas (outriggers), and administrivia.

Microship Status 10/27/93 -- Research requests and direct reception of satellite weather images.

Microship Status 10/28/93 -- Teflon-impregnated anodizing, kayak hull specifics and cautions re moving too fast on this, buoyancy calculations and specs. Report on Interlink DuraPoint waterproof pointing device.

Microship Status 10/29/93 -- Brief rhapsody on engineering, donation of motion-sensitive alarm, gear stowage issues.

November

Microship Status 11/2/93 -- Student volunteer party, donation of CD packaging sleeves, and offer of PIC microcontrollers from Microchip Technology.

Microship Status 11/4/93 -- Introductory design description of the audio crossbar system (Auxbar); notes on landing gear, antennas, and equipment packaging from brainstorm with Dave Wright.

Microship Status 11/9/93 -- We announce a major design change: internal metal frame with skin wrapped around it, simplifying point-loading issues with detachable wheels, folding crossbeams, and rig... with call for mechanical engineering volunteers. Also satellite weather images from the Internet (imagine!) and more calls for help...

Microship Status 11/10/93 -- List of on-board audio devices to flesh out auxbar spec, trailer width legal information, NMEA specs, and initial discussion of electronics bay pressurization system.

Microship Status 11/12/93 -- Student team management triumvirate (short-lived idea), conclusion of 8' overall road-mode width, selection issues on multidrop network components, Tadpole SPARCbook as on-board server, lab security system, and random status updates.

Microship Status 11/14/93 -- Preliminary weight study fantasy, totaling 1,122.4 pounds divided into 740 pounds of integrated gear and 382.4 of stowed stuff. Discussion of control system with conclusion that Ampro PC/104 386SX system is the ideal choice.

Microship Status 11/15/93 -- (Look at these dates! How did I do anything besides write updates?) Here we conclude that the multidrop network of controllers will be based on New Micros FORTH boards -- living under the Ampro system that acts as the boss.

Microship Status 11/17/93 -- Pressure-volume study and preliminary design of bay pressurization system.

Microship Status 11/22/93 -- "Replacing wires with computers," a discussion of the low-level network. Confirmation of sponsor support from New Micros, report on a student who assembled a voice-recorder board, brief boat-show report, and, buried in the random updates section, the lovely thought that all we need is off-the-shelf retractible aircraft landing gear...

The Nomadness Notes, Issue #24, 11/24/93 -- Lifestyle interlude! Here's a tale of going to the Skankin' Pickle concert on campus, along with snapshots of Southern California life, housemates, water waste, and beaches. The technical section of this update is a rhapsodic must-read overview of the boat design, now exceedingly esoteric and optimistic, but still somewhat based on reality. This also carries a useful cultural comment on the parallels between multihulls and recumbents, all wrapped up by a wonderfully casual description of the control network, almost as a fait accompli.

Microship Status 11/30/93 -- So many little progress updates that it makes me tired to read them... I was younger then.

December

Microship Status 12/12/93 -- The waterproof keyboard quest continues, Ampro 286 system and Sharp color LCD coming, video footage, and a full description of the New Micros Easy-A multidrop protocol (and why we use it).

Microship Status 12/21/93 -- Exuberant report on packaging and firing up the FORTH Hub board, involvement with the San Diego Supercomputer Center for visualizations and finite element analysis, custom kayaks now on order and comments on the deck design and pedal thrusters to be built into them, the notion of detaching amas and affixing wheels to folding akas to make landing gear, and Internet magic in the form of our Tadpole SPARC laptop being set up "continuously" on the net as a gopher server! Also news on the solar still fabrication, waterproof keyboards, AutoCAD donation, media updates, and the first of many panic-quests for lab space as I was caught up in UCSD politics.

Microship Status 12/27/93 -- Growing reality in the form of visualization images by Len Wanger, kayaks in progress, a blueprint from Robb Walker, and sail designs by Mark Reynolds. Quest for noise-reduction czar and discussion of RFI issues, introduction to FORTH, and work on an Excel weight-study spreadsheet by my girlfriend.

Microship Status 12/29/93 -- The Microship Mission Statement, covering the basic objective, constraints, design goals, and intended use.

January

Microship Status 1/7/94 -- Introduction to the engineering project teams (12 people on 8 projects), with a description of each. This is the beginning of the first quarter in which students became involved for course credit. Also, report on Robb Walker's estimates of hull and deck weights and resulting centers of gravity

Microship Status 1/18/94 -- Tons of random updates on all aspects of the electronic and mechanical projects. Announcement of our World Wide Web server going online, amazing me with 296 hits in one day

Microship Status 1/19/94 -- Digital Ocean's wireless AppleTalk, and a real-time clock program in FORTH.

Microship Status 1/20/94 -- We're trying to get the FORTH network going... and a couple of the mechanical guys build a toothpick model of the internal frame.

Microship Status 1/25/94 -- Oooh, deep hackage on the network, trying to get the multidrop guys talking. But the kayaks are finished in Canada, and about to be driven down by a friend...

Febuary

Microship Status 2/2/94 -- Control network alive with new interconnect hardware... and we discover the need for a multitasker in each node. Brief status update from each student engineering and volunteer team.

Microship Status 2/6/94 -- Ampro PC is working, Auxbar boards getting modified, LEDs on the nodes for multidrop status, first BEHEMOTH cannibalization <pang> for Sexbar, more on internal boat frame, grandiose plans for the web server, visit to a school using CU-SeeMe, and quest for a new base-office manager.

Microship Status 2/7/94 -- Incoming code from FORTH wiz Bill Muench, ACIA learning curves, and first successful operation of the Auxbar! Also, more discussion of noise issues...

Microship Status 2/12/94 -- Hot news in FORTH... a working multitasker and multidrop protocol! Also, the GPS is talking to a FORTH board, the kayaks arrive, and center-hull is in AutoCAD.

Microship Status 2/15/94 -- The network is looking good, with development tools in MicroPhone on the Mac and three LEDs per node to indicate status. Project teams accelerate accordingly.

Microship Status 2/25/94 -- Various Hub-level hacks and tools, Sharp color LCD is lovely, students having wins, and our marine architects stare at the kayaks.

Microship Status 2/28/94 -- Interrupts, ring buffers, and multitaskers make the Hub and network solid, and that video LCD sure is pretty...

March

Microship Status 3/13/94 -- Uh-ohhh... the 5,000-pound QE3 is leading to "a rather dramatic re-thinking of the overall structure." We've watched it grow with creeping featuritis and ever more grandiose specs, and suddenly it hit me... change is in the air

Microship Status 3/29/94 -- New student teams developing, fuzzy-logic autopilot system, Solarex PV samples, more thoughts on downsizing.

April

Microship Status 4/2/94 -- Bad news... a falling cabinet in Seaweed Canyon severely damages one of the kayaks! But the downsizing weight study reduces the 4,500 pound gear budget to 1,500... our design concept returning to a trio of kayaks (hmmm, sounds familiar... this started as a kayak, then a kayak-cat, then a kayak-tri... ballooning as the BEHEMOTH effect took hold and the wish list grew unconstrained). The control network is consolidated considerably, and a new project list is presented.

This turns out to be a good place to declare the end of an era, since in the next update we take these radical ideas about SMALL boats and launch into the Fulmar Epoch, a delicious interlude in which electronics moved somewhat to the background and the emphasis was on adventure.