FYI: Re: progress? YES! (Fwd)

[Ray Keefer <Ray.Keefer@ebay.sun.com>]

Hi,

Here is a nice status from Jonathan Shawl.

Regards,
Ray

>----------------Begin Forwarded Message----------------<

Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1999 03:22:00 -0400
From: "Jon Shawl" <shawl@torchlake.com>
Subject: Re: progress? YES!
To: "Ray Keefer" <Ray.Keefer@ebay.sun.com>


Ray Keefer wrote:

> Hi Jonathan,
>
> How is the design coming? Making any progress? It the team sticking together?
> What was the decision on CAD software?
>
> Curious,
> Ray

Hi Ray, and all P-subbers.
You can share this with the P-sub group too so they know what we have been up
to.

     Progress?   Humm, well lets see now, I will start from the top. The
"Design Team" As you know I started up a small sub "design team". For the
first few weeks it was only about 4 of us. It was decided that we would keep
the group small and private, maybe allowing only 10 members. I then wrote to
all the people I knew that seemed interested in the "design team" idea of this
new group. After a few personal e-mails to each one I would sign them up if
they were interested in helping out or offering what ever they could offer. I
did that until we had about 14 aboard, but 3 of them were just hanging out
silently to see what would happen. One asked to be dropped and one
discontinued his e-mail address and the 3rd one has joined in. As of right now
I think we have about 18 total. About 12 I met at your P-sub site and 6 others
that I have met as a result of people finding my site and asking me questions
about my sub. I have also sent many others over to P-subs to take a look at
what you have going there.  I am not planning on going over 20 members unless
the person has a lot to offer us.

We started with personal intros, telling about ourselves and what we wanted to
get out of this project and what we could offer the group. Since then we have
mostly discussed what we are going to do and how to do it. But we have also
jumped around on other things a little bit too. Some goals that have come out
of us so far range from writing a book, building a web site, making complete
plans, to  even building the resulting sub or subs. Recently we have been
making lists and narrowing them down to something practical and affordable,
and doable. We have decided on starting with a basic or generic design that we
can use as our team designed sub, and at the same time everyone has a personal
dream sub in mind too. The list of design goals for the basic sub goes
something like the following...

2 man
6000 lbs max. displacement
600 feet min.
and so on...

We have also made a "Master list" that seems to contain all the components any
small sub might have. I think it's about 125 items long. I are working on
refining the list and then we plan to make a design schedule out of it. Then we
will go through the list discussing and designing each part or system of the
sub. When we reach the end of the list we I expect we will have designed a sub
something like a K-600 for example. Hopefully, at the same time everyone will
have learned about all the parts of a sub and how to design each part safely
and according to a proven standard or code. Assuming one learns enough about
it, he will be more able to design his own personal dream sub. Who knows, we
may even end up with a dozen personal sub designs by the time we are done
designing the main one. Over all we are looking at it as about a 2 year
project due to the limited amount of spare time we all have. Most recently my
son and I have started work on a new web site so we can showcase the results
of the Design Teams efforts. I hope we can cross link to each others sub sites
to present a fuller view of what a small personal sub can be and how a person
can get into having their own mini sub. I will let you know when the site
ready for public viewing.

    On the CAD drawing issue, we haven't officially adopted any standard file
type or program yet, but it was talked about some already. Right now we have
the group mail server set up so we can send photo files along with our e-mail.
That one feature has been real cool!

    Yes, I think we are sticking together good. Over all I am very pleased and
surprised by the amount and kind of support we are getting so far. Several
people have, or are sending a cash donation to help keep the Yel-o-Sub site up
and running. Others have offered to draw, paint, program, type, calculate, or
be a leader or what ever they can do. I thank them for that. And I think this
goes for all the P-sub veterans and possibly the other newer members too,
Thank you Ray, and Jon W. too, for starting P-subs, it's the place that allowed
many of us to find each other, and it got some of us fired up about subs again.
 Sincerely,
Jon Shawl





>----------------End Forwarded Message----------------<