Remember the flying sub in “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea”?  I have always loved lightening holes in aircraft, and now they will be a visible part of Seeker.

It took the better part of two days but we got one of ten frames cut for the cargo hold.   It was not one of our better weekends.  Getting a hole cutter best suited for sheet rock to cut through 3/16″ aluminum took lot of skill and patience from Doug Stout.   And we had more that our fair share of do-overs on patterns for the frames themselves.  And the heat in the hull finally drove us out.  We’re looking forward to more cool weather.

Doug making our template.

Bart and Hugh

First of 10 frames in the cargo hold.

Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! About 50 folks showed up for last week’s open house and we got a year’s worth of good vibes. Seeker is more that a boat, she is a crew and a following of people that love making things, building a better world and who love life. Thanks for sharing your love!

Special Thanks to Scott Rokeby for the aerial shots. You can get Scott to shoot your event. See: https://www.facebook.com/DaedalusImagingLLC/

Two weekends ago Betsy and I were in Florida checking out a Junk Rig.  Last weekend, Bart, Jack and I were at the Tulsa Mini Maker Fair showing off Seeker, the ROV and recruiting help.   And this weekend is our open house.  So when do we have time to build something?   We are building something.   We are building a community, and it is that community that is making Seeker possible.

Drew Morgan

Patrick Forringer

Barry ‘s Creation

Zachary Scott Carpenter

Drew has the new guidance IMU component for the ROV and working on new code for it.

Patrick has gone through OpenROV’s code and started adapting if for  Seeker’s ROV.

We met Barry from Navico at the Maker Fair, and he happens to be the mechanical engineer that worked on the Lowrance side scan transducer.   He answered some important questions and will be a great resource moving forward.

We also met Zachary who had a great idea for using Coax instead of Cat5 for the ROV Tether because it’s smaller, cheaper, and there is a gadget that can run 10Mbps Ethernet 1.5 miles over RG6 coax.  See more here.

And that the way it goes.  Invention and construction are best done as a community.  Nothing worth doing is going to be easy.  It’s going to fail many times, it’s going to take longer that expected, it’s not going to look like what you envisioned in your head,  it’s going need to be attempted again and again.   Community is not just about finding the best answers, it is there for support.   So come out to our open house this Saturday 10 to 2.   See what we are doing and consider joining our crew.

“Slovak robotic sailing boat was trying to cross the Atlantic”   Meet Andrej Osusky from Lanzarote, Canary Islands who is designing and building an autonomous sailboat.    That’s the kind!   …and yes, he has great taste in T-Shirts.

Photo courtesy of Arron Starnes https://kinja.com/aaronstarnes

Some ideas take root and grow faster than the weeds.  SV Seeker is one of those ideas that started from a chance conversation about building a boat and getting it to the ocean via the Arkansas river.  That was about 12 years ago and the though of sailing a boat I built across the oceans was something that scared me.   …and it made me feel alive.   And it still does.  What’s the point of living if you don’t LIVE.  Feel the fear and do it anyway.

If you are in or near Tulsa, we invite you to come see us at the Tulsa Mini Maker Faire,  or stop by for a visit on Saturday, September 3rd from 10am to 2pm.   –Doug