Here two of the Calamaro team apply resin to the fiberglass hull.  It's just about ready to come off the spindle!

Here's an updated view of the propulsion system.  Welding is complete and the SPD pedals are in place.  Cable needs to be threaded through all the pulleys and attached at the anchor points.

And here we are at North Point High School pool again.  This time we're verifying the emergency buoy system.

Test one on drape molding acrylic sheet over a small, felt-covered mixing bowl.  We overheated this sheet so there were bubbles in it, but otherwise things went pretty smoothly.

This photo shows the plug after it had been substantially faired.  It's not quite done, but the next day it was ready to be fiberglassed.  The spindle is a length of 20' well casing that was left over from having a new well dug last year.  It's a little bit flexible, which made the fairing tricky.  We'd use solid pipe if we did this again.

Propulsion-meister Marty (aka Smarty) has been working hard.  Starting with a concept that Sam proposed, he developed a basic design.  Karl added some sage words of advice, and the system took shape on paper.  Then it was time to commit and lay down some cash in the form of an order with McMaster Carr.  It was an exciting day when everything arrived.  Slowly the drive train has been taking shape.  The photo at left shows how it looked earlier today.

 

One of the big challenges for Team Propulsion has been learning to braze with consistent results.  The photo at left shows what happens when you overheat the base material (left) versus when it's just right (right).  Although the part on the left looks like it had small pox, it's still functional.

A photo of some of the components that will be used in the finished system.

All the polystyrene discs are on the spindle waiting to be glued up and faired.

Today we worked on the trailing edge of the submarine.  Here's what we had done by day's end. 

This project is a great application of basic math.  We used a sketch of the hull inner profile that we generated in SolidWorks to determine the diameter of the circles at intervals equal to the polystyrene board thickness.  Then we used a little trigonometry to calculate the taper for each disc.  Using a tilthead bandsaw and a little jig we made, the discs are cut in no time.  It's always a reward when you cut a disc and it fits perfectly in the stack.

SolidWorks is a really useful 3D CAD software, and we could have had the polystyrene cut out  on a CNC machine if we were more skilled in its use.  Unfortunately, no one on the team is proficient in 3D CAD.  This is one skill we need to pick up before we start our next project.

Today Abby and Sam appealed to St. Mary's Sodality for sponsorship.  Those wonderful ladies agreed!  Thank you, St. Mary's Sodality!

Chief hull builder and one of our pilots, Sam, takes a moment to good off with his "Mickey" ears. 

Not shown in the photos from today are Teddy, Justin and Charlie who stopped by with their mom to help.  We have a super team!

We have a mix of extruded and expanded polystyrene board.  The nose is being done up in 1/2" and 1" thickness board.  The rest of the hull plug will be 2-3" board.  In this picture, our steering engineer is learning how hard (or easy) it is to shave the board.

All geared up for a turn at the band saw.  Our emergency systems engineer is looking pretty sharp in pink with safety glasses and ear protection, don't you think?

Lydia rough cut some foam circles using a hot knife.  It didn't work too well.  The knife sliced through the foam, all right, but then the foam melted back to itself.  With a little fiddling around (appropriate since Lydia's an awesome violinist), she managed to push that disc out.

The hull plug is starting to take shape!  And it looks like the pilot really will fit inside. 

Thank you, JFK Council, Knights of Columbus, for your generous sponsorship!

Today we are presenting to the Knights of Columbus, a group of Catholic men devoted to family, community, and church. Explaining to them what our group is about and details about our group which include
-only group from Southern Maryland
-youngest group entered into the ISR races
-independent group of Catholic families
-we designed our own propulsion system
(I'm going to post some sketches made by Mr.Marty drew of the propulsion system)
We are also going to share our goals which are
•to cross the finish line
•design and build a working one man submarine etc.....
oh I almost forgot the colors of our logo is also the colors of the Knights of Columbus