competition wanted

Discussion in 'Boat Design' started by mc_rash, Apr 4, 2021.

  1. mc_rash
    Joined: Aug 2020
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    Location: Netherlands

    mc_rash Senior Member

    Hey guys,
    are there any (international) boat design/naval architecture competitions where you can participate (as a student)? I don't need to get a price or become the winner, I just want to find out if I could satisfy the state of requirements and maybe compare the results with the results from other participants and learn from that contest.
     
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  2. Will Gilmore
    Joined: Aug 2017
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    Will Gilmore Senior Member

    There is to be a manual powered underwater boat contest, but I don't know anything about it. I would guess there would be several aimed at "green" renewable power.
     
  3. mitchgrunes
    Joined: Jul 2020
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    Location: Maryland

    mitchgrunes Senior Member

    Don't know if this interests you, but there are a bunch of concrete boat competitions. I guess the idea is that building a small boat out of concrete seems incredibly stupid. Sometimes they are raced.

    Likewise for duct tape boats, or duct tape + cardboard.

    Also, there are judged shows for boats you build, like this Small Craft Festival that occurs at a museum where they also teach full size and model boat building:

    cbmm.org/events/annual-festivals-and-special-events/mid-atlantic-small-craft-festival

    There are many museums that teach boat building. I bet a lot of them have such contests.

    There are contests like

    woodenboatshow.com/the-challenge

    run by or with the help of WoodenBoat Magazine.

    But you may have a problem: A lot of such crowded events may be cancelled due to the pandemic. Also, you may have to find an event which isn't too far for you to travel.

    You could just look up "boat building contest" on a search engine.

    E.g.,

    +"boat building contest" - Google Search https://www.google.com/search?q=%2B%22boat+building+contest%22&client=firefox-b-1-d&ei=HKlzYPPhAZ3S5NoP-Z67iA8&oq=%2B%22boat+building+contest%22&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAM6BwgAEEcQsANQxr0VWMa9FWDxwBVoAXACeACAAcgBiAH7AZIBBTEuMC4xmAEAoAEBqgEHZ3dzLXdpesgBBMABAQ&sclient=gws-wiz&ved=0ahUKEwjz35-5zffvAhUdKVkFHXnPDvEQ4dUDCAw&uact=5

    finds many of them.
     
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  4. mitchgrunes
    Joined: Jul 2020
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    Location: Maryland

    mitchgrunes Senior Member

    I just looked up the "human powered submarines" on Google, that Will Gilmore alluded to. They look fun, but maybe not completely practical.

    They aren't as fast as racing kayaks, or racing sculls, or sliding seat racing singles, nor can they go as far, and the pilots enter their craft underwater with the help of scuba divers.

    But I think they are faster than human scuba divers, though there are electric powered underwater scooters that can make them go even faster.

    While there are also international human powered submarine competitions, I wouldn't be surprised if the U.S. Navy started sponsoring the competitions at Carderock, MD Naval Warfare Center as a source of ideas for devices to help Navy Seals sneak into places more quickly, or if they wanted to make contact with and encourage current and prospective engineering students, and their academic advisors, who might later work on naval projects. The Navy supplies small grants for other design contests - e.g., for stem students, who want to win small amounts of money (I suspect less than build cost! - this probably isn't a way to get rich quick.):

    FLEET Contests & Challenges Summer 2018 http://www.navalengineers.org/STEM-FLEET/2018Camps

    STEM Competitions, Events & Contests | 2021 | High School Students & Middle School https://www.idtech.com/blog/ultimate-guide-to-stem-competitions-events

    I wouldn't be surprised if one of the terms of such contests is that the sponsor is allowed to use your ideas - but the Navy does offer small additional grants to develop some of the ideas.

    You might also look at google for "boat design contest".

    There are so many of these contests, that I doubt you can participate in all of them. :)

    If you are in an engineering program, perhaps your academic advisors can point you in the direction towards contests.

    Any custom boat designer or builder is in a contest for business with other custom boat designers and builders. If you build a small boat, you could maybe take it out to the water, and put an ad on the boat offering to design and build boats for other people. If it looks cool enough, someone might bite. Or you could sell your boats on Craigslist - being sure to include pictures.

    Perhaps you would enjoy attending classes in building boats. There are many such classes. This site even has an education sub-forum:

    Education https://www.boatdesign.net/forums/education/

    You might also be interested in Summer internships, some of which pay money, as opposed to most amateur contests, which you typically have to pay to enter. I used to work at the Naval Research Laboratory (though not in boat design), and I noticed that at the time they had a summer internship program. I'm not sure that still exists, but if it doesn't, there are others:

    NAVY STEM PROGRAMS https://www.moorparkcollege.edu/navy-stem-programs

    Naval STEM Internship Opportunities Available for High School, College Students > United States Navy > display-pressreleases https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/Press-Releases/display-pressreleases/Article/2412697/naval-stem-internship-opportunities-available-for-high-school-college-students/

    Summer STEM :: Admissions :: USNA https://www.usna.edu/Admissions/Programs/STEM.php

    Or search at google for "navy" and "internship".

    In the U.S., SOME such internships are specific to U.S. citizens. Perhaps there are others abroad open to citizens of their own countries.

    Anyway, I'm sure you can use a search engine as well as I can, and can look for other such things.
     
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  5. CocoonCruisers
    Joined: Dec 2015
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    CocoonCruisers Junior Member

    mitchgrunes and Will Gilmore like this.
  6. Eshfor
    Joined: Jun 2021
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    Location: US

    Eshfor New Member

    In my opinion, building a boat is a very cool idea. I think it will be interesting for children to try to make a boat that will look cool and even be able to swim. It is even possible to attach a sail to such a boat so that it can sail by itself thanks to the wind. Although the current generation of children are only interested in phones and games, in my opinion this is quite sad. I always want my children to do something interesting and develop, and not look at the phone 24/7. How do you solve this problem with your children?
     
  7. Will Gilmore
    Joined: Aug 2017
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    Location: Littleton, nh

    Will Gilmore Senior Member

    Take them out in a Hobie or some other high performance sailboat and let them feel the thrill of hiking out and 12 knots that they will swear is 40.
     
  8. emrecantasdemir
    Joined: Feb 2022
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    Location: istanbul

    emrecantasdemir Junior Member

    Hello,

    I am writing this text to seek advice on behalf of Team Amphibees. As Istanbul Technical University students, we are trying to reduce sea pollution in the world by using autonomous uav and usv vehicles. We seek financial resources and guidance to apply this idea in the physical world. Accordingly, our team needs to participate in competitions. If there are competitions in your area that we can participate in, can you contact me?

    Thanks in advance,
    Stay safe.
     
  9. Flotation
    Joined: Jan 2020
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    Location: Canada

    Flotation Senior Member

  10. Flotation
    Joined: Jan 2020
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    Location: Canada

    Flotation Senior Member


    There's also https://www.roboticsailing.org/ their competition came to a halt due to the pandemic. I hope the activities continue now things seem to get better. Interesting information can be found on the websites for the various years. In the conference sections papers are mentioned that were discussed during the conference events that we organized with the competitions.


    There is some interesting documentation to be found on MicroTransat wiki: microtransat / Wiki / Home https://sourceforge.net/p/microtransat/wiki/Home/
     
  11. kerosene
    Joined: Jul 2006
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    Location: finland

    kerosene Senior Member

    the premise is totally impractical and unfeasible.
    Boyan slat sold this idea 10+ years ago and there were quality rebuttals to the consept

    - the trash is largely in a layer of 5 meters as small fragments
    -ocean is enormously vast and harsh. one thing to do an AV drone that crosses ocean another to make one that could carry a task with meaningful capacity (like collecting more trash than the boat itself will contribute on a point of failure)
    -any work at the source is near infinitely more efficient use of effort (and banning straws here where all trash is burned in power plants isn't it)

    that is not to say it couldn't be an interesting student challenge.
     

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  12. Will Gilmore
    Joined: Aug 2017
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    Location: Littleton, nh

    Will Gilmore Senior Member

    If one were to develop an inexpensive way to turn recovered trash into usable sheet material, say by incineration in a plasma furnace and turning the slag into cheap building materials that makes it profitable to collect the garbage. How about a competition to build a marketable ocean-crossing vessel from recovered plastics and/or other thrown away refuse?

    The parameters could be points for percentage of the build: hull, hardware, rigging, sails... total cost of production and flexibility of materials in building seaworthy, high performance boats.
    (That last one means the model built only needs to reasonably represent fast, efficient sailing or power boats. If the design sample isn't the fastest, it could still mean another, efficient design from the same materials and techniques could be built).
     
  13. mitchgrunes
    Joined: Jul 2020
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    mitchgrunes Senior Member

    I understand there have been attempts to develop biological solutions - i.e., organisms that biodegrade significant portions of the plastic material.

    Perhaps a more efficient solution than collecting or consolidating garbage would be to develop means to distribute such organisms?

    Of course, the distribution of any such organism would itself alter local ecologies. E.g., whatever you biodegrade the plastic to, would become an available nutrient. In addition, the distribution mechanism might accidentally distribute other non-native organisms. Or the organisms might incidentally biodegrade natural bio materials too. There are no perfect solutions to large scale ecological problems. You can only do the best you can do.
     
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  14. mitchgrunes
    Joined: Jul 2020
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    Location: Maryland

    mitchgrunes Senior Member

    Consolidation may also be be more efficient than collection. If you find a way to clump it together, those clumps may do less harm than the dispersed material. The clumps might also act as attachment basis for other organisms, much like mangrove forests and coral reefs. Since many reefs are ecologically threatened, to some extent, you might be restoring that balance. But is there a way to clump plastics (perhaps chemically specific plastics?) without clumping naturally occurring organisms?

    I haven't got all the answers relating to any of these ideas. And realistically, good solutions would require expertise in many fields, like engineering, ecology, biology, oceanography, perhaps self-replicating machinery, etc., making it difficult for an isolated student to craft a good solution.

    That said, the students might have to compete with companies and other organizations that included paid professional engineers and ecologists, that actively sought large scale funding for such a project. In addition, you need to do isolated tests over a large range of climates and environments, to find unintended adverse consequences, before releasing intended solutions into the natural environment. The best the students might hope for is to get their ideas implemented by one of those companies or organizations.
     
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