James Bond like Car/Submarine

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Junkyard Wars : One Thread

Have the teams build a car that can be driven on land and underwater. The submersible car must be capable of carrying the entire team. This would make for a great challenge because the teams would have to figure out how to water proof thier vehicle. Also, the teams would have to figure out how to get their vehicle to operate underwater and on land. Scuba gear would be allowed. For safety concerns, the water should be no more than 10 feet deep. Also, all vehicles must be equiped with an emergency escape hatch.

-- Bryan Barnett (Dvldance@aol.com), April 10, 2001

Answers

Wonderful dream, but I think the practical reality is that you don't want to be inside anything "waterproof" that you can't easily get out of. Putting someone inside a submarine is asking to have someone drown. Even if I had an escape hatch, scuba gear, professional constant air supply from topside and the thing was hooked to a crane, I would have to think real hard about getting into it. There was a British submarine many years ago which had the crew suffocate with the hatch a mere six feet underwater...

As long as I'm at it, I might as well talk about pressure differentials. The extra pressure at 10 feet is about 5 psi. The part to remember about that is not "5 pounds", but "per square inch". An emergency escape hatch that is 20" in diameter (which is almost too small) has pi*r*r square inches on it, in this case 3.14*10*10 or 314 square inches and 1570 pounds of pressure. Hope you had your wheaties this morning.

Brian

Brian

-- Brian Flynn (bflynn@nc.rr.com), April 10, 2001.


I think we should send Brian Flynn to the next show. It scares me how smart some people seem to be. I saw the show where they made land/aquatic vehicles. That seemed challenge enough.

-- Julie Summersell (Juliesummersell@aol.com), April 11, 2001.

Moderation questions? read the FAQ