Wolverine Engineers Participate in Navy Sponsored Submarine Races
A team from the Univ of Michigan joined with teams from other countries and other universtities in the 14th biennial International Submarine Race at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division in West Bethesda Maryland. The goal is to demonstrate a human powered submarine that can navigate an underwater obstacle course as quickly as possible. These craft typically reach speeds of 5-6 knots, with the record being 7.4 knots. Also, there is a award for the best innovation in the design.
The competitiion will run from June 25-30. I hope to post an update of how well our team did.
Go Blue!
Paging Rusty Woods ... Paging Rusty Woods. Mr. Woods, your legs are needed in Bethesda - stat.
http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/strangely-not-ot-michigan-has-alum-pro-cycling
The team with the world record 2-person sub is out of Ecole de technologie superieure in Canada, they have a long running tradition of subs called Omer.
The team with the world record 1-person sub is out of TU Delft in the Netherlands, they also have a long running tradition of subs called WASUB.
The WASUB team was getting it's start when a guy from TU Delft was doing post-grad work in NAME at Michigan. He worked on our project when we were going through some ups and downs in the early 2000s, and was an invaluable resource. He went back to the Netherlands, and did the same for them. They had some really impressive videos of what they were able to accomplish. They might still be on youtube.
There are also some videos at the second link--the web site of the competition.
And Richie Cunningham and Lori Beth will be there to "watch" :)
Submarine races in action:
A real nail biter.
Back in my parents' day when teens went to go make out on the beach, they called it "going to the submarine races."
I can't hear that term without that making that association.
Engineers would go to the submarine races and complain they couldn't see any submarines.
You wonder how they ever reproduce.
We should all be liberal arts majors by now.
Personally, I prefer motorboat races. But that's just me.
That student summer was very humid and we built a few screen doors into our sub just for such days when we were surfaced. No mosquitos inside our boat and the air currents would have been comforting except for all that water pouring in before we submerged involuntarily. Those were the days, fortunately we crew all could swim, which we did, I swear.