Spillinator Docking Ops

Here’s a refinement of the docking operation equipment concept. The docking mechanism has expanded into a funnel and there’s a guide post in front to help the ROV driver find the correct position.

The ROV design has become more detailed, though of course this is nothing like a real world ROV. Real ROVs frankly look like box-shaped messes of tubing and aren’t very visually appealing. Anyhow, by making my own design, I avoid corporate patent trouble.

I suspect that Youtube isn’t linking my video because it uses music, and though Kevin MacLeod’s music is in the public domain, maybe someone in Youtube doesn’t know that. Or maybe I should have included a link to his site, I don’t know. Anyhow, my go-around will be to make more videos, this time without music.

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Spillinator Video Finished

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Working on spillinator video

Just a little status report — er, note. I have been working today on a spillinator video. This one goes to about two minutes. It’s got background music!

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Spillinator, the Movie

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Spillinator assembly, now with spill!

No spillinator is complete without a spill. Here’s my first attempt at spill portrayal.

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Spillinator Assembly

This picture illustrates the spillinator in mid-assembly. It reveals the interior cuts to the TEUs and shows how the ROVs can lower the TEUs into place.

I added a prop housing to the rear of the ROVs and also put ‘fog’ into the picture to give more of a sense of distance. If you look in the lower center, you can just barely see the borehole.

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Sketchup graphics settings

I figured out how to change the background so that it looks sea-like. Also, I’m using PNG graphics here, so there’s no loss. That’s why the chimney looks sharper.

For my next trick, I’m either going to do an x-ray of the spillinator, or a build sequence.

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Adding color

Submarines are yellow, hook-ups are orange, red is the relief hatch chimney, the docking platforms are green with white. The purpose of the coloring is to identify objects in the murky deep.

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Spillinator and subs

In this version, the hook-ups are moved to the corners and placed on towers. Submarines carry tanks of oil from the spillinator to the surface, where the oil is offloaded onto tanker ships. The submarines then carry the tanks back to the spillinator.

The tanks appear to be about twice the volume of a TEU. That’s 2720 cubic feet, or 77 cubic meters, or 19,244 gallons. It would take approximately four hundred seconds to fill a tank if there were only one tank. So on average, each tank will be there for about twenty-four to twenty-eight minutes.

At $2 a gallon, each tank would be $40,000 of oil.

There is lots of room for modification in this drawing, and I’d also like to do an animation at some point. But the main point is: a low-pressure containment with submarine transport is possible.

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cthulhu and plastics on 101 Theory Drive

Another month, another reading list. I’m reading another book on plastics, and then a book about the scientific effort to identify where human memory is, and then a book on giant molecules, called appropriately enough, Giant Molecules.

And I’m also reading a Lovecraft anthology. His famous story, The Call of Cthulhu is in the middle. That’s my one ficton book. I suppose it’s kind of downbeat. I’ll read something happy next month. Maybe.

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