Articles, Technical Info, and Other Material

NOTE:  Most of this material is copyrighted; feel free to "deep link" to any page,
but please contact me if you wish to reprint an article or use it on your own website. 

Thanks,
Steve

Declutter the Space Between Gadgets and Computer with a Docking Pack - This is a simple procedure for assembling a single pack that integrates all the chargers, docks, and interfaces associated with portable devices.

Basic Composite Fabrication - Introduction to working with cored composite materials, fiberglass, and epoxy... with additional comments on tools and facilities.

Center of Gravity and Weight Study Database - A detailed article on the mathematics of balancing your boat... and how to build a database that maintains a running net center of gravity.

Cardboard-core Composites - For many structural non-marine applications like simple enclosures without compound curves, this technique involving hot-glued cardboard and fiberglass may be just what you need.

Keeping Rodents Out of Your Pole Building - A topic I wish I didn't have to research... how to add a rodent-exclusion retrofit to a metal pole building.

Note:  This class of articles has "forked," and there is another collection structured much like this one but specific to the Nomadness trimaran and Number Nine kayak projects.  It's over yonder.

The Microship Gear Shop - After two decades of working on this stuff full-time, I have some strong opinions about various products.  Set up like an informal shop with a dozen "departments," this is a collection of mini-reviews and commentary accompanied by links to vendors' catalog pages.  The focus is on kayak and small-boat gear and related tools, naturally with a technomadic slant...

First Steps to Aquatic Technomadics - How do you pull up roots and convert a stable land-based lifestyle into one of full-time adventure?  This is your to-do list, written with a slant toward the Technomadic Flotilla but widely applicable to large-scale expeditions of any flavor.

7 Degrees of Freedom Expedition - This is the overview page for the upcoming 400-mile jaunt of the Technomadic Flotilla, from Port Hardy (BC) to Camano Island (WA), scheduled for one o' these days.  This document further links to the Flotilla home page.

The Microship Substrate - A thorough discussion of the custom micro-trimarans that are the basis of the Microships... including hull choices, deck fabrication, crossbeams and their nests, hatch design, mast step, daggerboard, structural issues, and fabrication.

A Multihull Primer - Written from the perspective of the Microship project, this article introduces multihull sailboats and discusses the trade-offs that contrast them with traditional monohulls.

Gonzo Engineering - Massively audacious feats of creativity fall out of a way of thinking that is much more a lifestyle than a toolset.  This article addresses this madness, then playfully reduces the design process to a set of heuristics that would definitely not make engineering managers comfortable (but are demonstrably true).

Microship Fabrication Projects Available- Sort of the "last hurrah" of the amphibian pedal/solar/sail micro-trimaran project... this catalogs the remaining jobs that would be required to get the ship expedition-ready.  But in late 2006, I acquired a larger boat, a bit more turn-key and much more liveable, and new work centers around that. I am leaving this here for historical purposes (and the good photos).

The NRL Mobile Lab Project - Originally spawned by the need to move the "keepers" from my dad's estate from Kentucky back home to Camano Island, the new hard-core truck/trailer rig is the substrate for a long-desired mobile lab facility.  This group of pages documents the process, starting with an overview of the vehicle itself.

The Shacktopus Hacks Collection - The Shacktopus project (son of Microship, grandson of BEHEMOTH, etc) is spawning a number of packaging tricks, circuit designs, and hacks various.  Unlike previous projects, where I believed I'd go back and write about them someday, this time I'm producing short technical pieces as the system develops. 

The Microship's Tapwave Zodiac - A product-focused narrative that captures learning curves, hacks, integration tricks, and resources.  This rugged Palm-powered hand-held computer with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and killer graphics was planned to be the Microship user interface before the product was discontinued...

Extreme Harsh-Environment Packet & APRS - An overview of the tracker, power, and packaging systems aboard Bubba, the inflatable kayak that was an essential part of the fleet until being replaced by a shorter pedal/sail kayak that would fit between the cross-arms of the mothership.  (The new kayak project is documented here.)

WANDER:  A Portable Linux-Based Data Collection System - This article describes the hardware and software design of a Linux system we built into a sealed Pelican box as part of the NSF Wireless Field Test project. 

SEXBAR:  A Serial Crossbar Network - This gives an overview and photos of this useful subsystem, capable of making interconnections among 32 serial devices under software control (with automatic RS-232 polarity sensing).  Includes a link to purchase a PDF with schematics and full software listings.

Winnebiko & BEHEMOTH Specs - The three versions of my computer-laden recumbent bicycle are compared here, including lists of all electronic systems and mechanical features.

The Brain Interface Unit - A geeky explanation of one of the more essential components aboard BEHEMOTH.

Passions of the Ether - A cultural analysis of 16 different "genotypes" within the amateur radio community.  What drives people to do this?

The Tools of Technomadics - A spirited, fast-paced retrospective of the entire bike era... and the germination of the Microship.  This piece is considerably fresher and more fun than the historical discussion in the "Bike Adventure" part of the site.

A Decade of Microship Development - Inspired by a kayaking epiphany in 1992, I launch the Microship project... which takes ten years to near completion.  This is the tale of that strange epic, involving three labs, major relationship upheavals, and four nautical substrates.

Conjuring the Microship Design - This lengthy and detailed article explores all the design requirements from the philosophical to the technical, in the process arriving at something like a specification.

The Video Turret - A very detailed design description (including complete schematics and software listings) of the sealed video turret developed for the Microship project.  Lots of techniques here that apply to robotics and embedded control projects...

Ignoring Rotation and Scaling in Image Recognition - This little piece discusses a way to completely avoid the classic problem with rotation and scaling of the input image in a template-based pattern recognition system... using a logarithmic-polar mapping trick hard-wired into the human visual system.

The Miles with Maggie series - This consists of 55 chapters that were originally posted to the GEnie network as they were written between 1986 and 1989, covering the 6,000-mile Winnebiko II adventure (the sequel to Computing Across America) as well as a follow-up school bus tour, random adventures, and the germination of the BEHEMOTH project.  This collection is already for sale as a PDF, but I am slowly posting the full text as a set of pages here... the link takes you to the table of contents.

Microship Status Reports - I haven't done any of these since late 2001, but am now in the process of cleaning up the collection of 140 postings, fixing links, and otherwise bringing them into the fold of site resources.  Unlike the Miles with Maggie series above, I am working backwards from the most recent, since technical relevance is more of an issue here.

Articles by Bob Stuart - Bob is a guru of human-powered vehicle design and composite fabrication, and this is a collection of his articles about the SpinFin pedal drive, the Lambordinghy, the famous Car-Cycle, and using Coroplast in HPV design.

Passion - Actually titled "The Heart of Nomadness," this little essay from 1992 captures some of the mad, driven intensity that is the engine behind creativity and growth.

The Gumbo Scene - A little cultural vignette from the Bible Belt, excerpted from Computing Across America.

A Mycological Tone Poem - One of my favorite parts of the Computing Across America book... a magic moment with the flute in Arches National Park (Utah).

The Other Woman - "The road, the Other Woman, is the love of my life... and I’ll vow to kiss her sweet asphalt forever if she’ll keep me free from the torpor of stability."

The Many Flavors of Water - A succession of vignettes from my first kayaking experiences in 1992... the germ of the Microship project.

Hiking Heaven; Hiking Hell - The story of an unexpected life-threatening moment in the wilds of Utah.

The Greatest Risk - A tiny little essay on the one that can really get ya.

The Fulmar Adventure - Two tiny trimarans in a gonzo loop around Pacific Northwest waters... an adventure that shaped the current Microship design.

(Microship shop!)