HydroComp Software Propels the IOWA Project

From Jill Aaron, Managing Director, and Ashley Kaplan, Administrative Intern We are excited to have been asked to participated in the “IOWA Project”.  Recreating a model of a fully functioning historical battleship requires time, passion, and dedication. Donn McKinney had a passion for ships from his early childhood. His dedication spanning more than 30+ years [...]

Care and feeding of your small thruster

Miscellaneous Musings from Don MacPherson, Technical Director Ocean Tech Expo is a small conference and expo for the submersible community. It was held last week in Newport, RI. Most of the major players in ROV and AUV vehicles were exhibiting, and I was very pleased to see many of our HydroComp thruster design clients exhibiting [...]

Detailed propeller design for naval architects

Miscellaneous Musings from Don MacPherson, Technical Director It has been a few months since our PROPS2010 Bootcamp, and we have used the time to reflect on the class, our participants, and propeller design in general. First and foremost, we are grateful to our participants for the time that they spent with us away from family [...]

Blind faith: engineers cannot afford it

Miscellaneous Musings from the Technical Director Let me share a story from my first technical internship when I was in high school back in the 1970s. I was working in the engineering department of a pump company. Our analytical tools were simple calculators – and a new “computer”, with keyboard, screen, and printer. Only one [...]

Dog sledding as a model for team management

Miscellaneous Musings from the Technical Director I am not about to cast myself as a business “self-help” guru. Those guys crack me up. If they had the business savvy to be successful, why are they flogging “how-to-succeed-in-business” books and audio tapes. They are good at selling books and tapes, but I’m not sure how much [...]

Commercial software for academic purposes

Miscellaneous Musings from the Technical Director Primum non nocere. “First, do no harm.” This phrase is a basic principle of the medical profession. The practitioner is reminded to carefully consider if the application of their craft might do more harm than good. I wish that university professors and administrators would keep this phrase in mind [...]