R/V Lee Thompson
The R/V Thompson is our new, custom, electric catamaran boat. Everything about R/V Thompson is designed to perform excellent science. I like to think of her as a floating moonpool--she is purpose built to lower sensors and sonars into the water between the pontoons for testing. Starting with just aluminum pontoon hulls, we designed and fabricated our own weldments for the frame, gantry, and pilot house. My primary role was to integrate our 6 Lithionics batteries with our 2 Elco electric outboard motors.
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Buoy Fieldwork in Nome Alaska
This year I had the opportunity to fly out to Nome Alaska to assist with the final preparation of large Arctic buoys. We flew to Nome in September 2021 and stayed for a month--long enough to eat at every restaurant at least 3 times eat the last arctic huckleberries, and see the first snow.
To say this was a challenging environment for innovation would be a gross understatement. We worked out of a large, cold, dark, leaky warehouse near the harbor. We came prepared--we barged car-sized buoys and a full 20ft container; air shipped 4 pallets; and hand-carried 10 pelican cases onto the plane. The barge was late, the air shipments were lost--all we had when we arrived were the pelican cases of electronics. We got to work sourcing any needed supplies at the two (until one shut down for the winter) hardware stores in Nome and preparing our warehouse to receive the buoys and supplies. We prepared as much of the testing as we could. After two weeks of delays, we finally received our buoys and got to work full-steam. I played two primary roles in Nome: Battery pack engineer and troubleshooter. We were unable to install the batteries into the buoys in Seattle due to shipping regulations, so we had to install them in Nome just before deployment. I was responsible for putting together our lithium cell "sticks" into large battery packs that would power the buoys' scientific instrumentation through the winter. |
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Sensors and Sonars
Sonars and acoustic sensor devices are our core competency. We specialize in conceptualizing and prototyping custom, novel sonars. I am involved in all steps of the project from concept through initial prototyping, fabrication of alpha units, and lab and field testing. A Jack (Jill?) of all trades, I am involved in the full spectrum of both electrical and mechanical work including opportunity space analysis, intricate electromechanical transducer design, pressure housing design, fabrication/assembly, system integration, maintenance, troubleshooting, and testing.
Our custom sonars are cool enough that we keep our photos close--but here's a cool photo of a cover that I made to keep diesel exhaust from coming up into the cabin on the R/V Light during sonar testing. The R/V Light is a hybrid vessel with diesel generators that have one MAJOR design flaw: they dump exhaust between the pontoons so that when we open the moon pool to deploy sonars, exhaust gets into the cabin of the boat at unsafe levels. The first time we field tested on the R/V Light, this unexpected issue shut down our testing. In just a few days, I was able to fab this moonpool cover to seal out the exhaust and allow us to resume our field work. |
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