Project Pulse: Air Squeegee

By LCDR Mark Blaszczyk

With less than a week until Waterfront Athena 8, we’re showcasing some of the success stories from our previous events. Here is some background and an update on one of the ideas presented at Athena 7, the Air Squeegee by STG1 Michael Butcher, COMLCSRON ONE.

The design process for his concept started when he was a junior sailor, being one of the people that had to perform the sometimes dangerous activity of drying the towed array sonar. Like many of our Athenians, he always thought that there had to be a better and safer way to do it.

His idea for an air drying system didn’t come about until he was at COMLCSRON ONE, when the ASW package was being installed on the Littoral Combat Ship. In the process, there was a question about how to get the drogue out of the extra-long fairlead that the ship was fitted with.  STG1 suggested that an angled air jet be used to blow the line through the fairlead, and it’s from that idea that his Air Squeegee pitch was born.  If there were three jets, then full coverage could be achieved and the array could be dried off without the need to hand wipe it.

About a year later he learned about The Athena Project and figured it would be a good opportunity to pursue his dream of never having to wipe down an array again. He presented his prototype at Athena 7 and though he didn’t win the Admiral Sims award,  his idea received considerable attention.

STG1 Butcher’s first prototype of the Air Squeegee, presented at Athena 7.

After his presentation he spoke with a few other sailors about his idea and incorporated their concerns into a “MK2” design. One of the key flaws with the MK1 was that the protruding jets could snag on the array and cause an unsafe condition. To alleviate this problem he incorporated nylon hardware in the concept creating a kind of tear away point in case of malfunction.

Recently, STG1 Butcher talked through and explained the problem and his proposed solution to Susie Alderson and her team of Scientists from Commander, Naval Surface Forces SES, granting specific funding for further research and prototypes, onboard USS BENFOLD.  While onboard he worked with Pete Schmitz of Intel Corporation to 3D map the space and during a follow-up meeting at SPAWAR, STG1 worked with modelers to generate a 3D rendering.

Soon, the team expects to 3D print his idea and start testing his MK2 design.  In a parallel effort, STG1 Butcher has been working with the folks at PEO IWS 5 and NUWC to determine feasibility.

So, what started as a simple idea born out of frustration has blossomed into a concept with real legs and momentum. To share the story of how far the idea has come, STG1 will be kicking off Waterfront Athena 8 this Friday (hopefully with his MK2 design in tow).

This is a great example of the Navy innovative spirit and the great potential your ideas have at an Athena waterfront event – I look forward to seeing your ideas at the next Athena event.

If you’re in the San Diego area and want to present your idea, send us a message! And, more importantly, come out to Societe Brewing on August 28th for Athena 8!

LCDR Mark Blaszczyk is the Combat Systems Training Lead in Commander Littoral Combats Ship Squadron One and the co-lead for The Athena Project’s San Diego chapter.  He is a graduate of Purdue University with a BS in Civil Engineering and Duke University with a Masters in Business Administration.

Connect with The Athena Project on Facebook: www.facebook.com/athenanavy or follow us on Twitter: @AthenaNavy. Interested in starting a movement of your own? Message us, or e-mail athenanavy@gmail.com!

The Power Of The Wheelbook: Three Easy Ways To Get Innovative

By LT Dave Nobles

2015 has all the makings of a great year. Granted, we’re only six days into it, but with so many emerging technologies, social movements and a new Star Wars movie coming, it’s hard to not get excited for the future.

As with any January since the inception of the internet, the trend in the blogosphere is to generate a post of a list of things that we want to or should or shouldn’t do in the New Year, for a fresh start. Well, in an effort to avoid that cliché, we’ll keep it simple.

This year, we’re resolving to write stuff down.

It’s a pledge that sounds easy, elementary and even pedestrian, but so often we just don’t do it.

As we’re surrounded by technology, it’s easy to open up a program like Evernote to organize our thoughts or bark some ideas into an application like Dragon Dictation. While these tools are amazing, it’s not the same as writing.

I’m talking about pen and paper, not typing into a laptop or tapping virtual keyboards on a phone or a tablet. Back in September, The Huffington Post posted an article on a study by Indiana University that pointed out the significant benefits to putting the ink to the page, including limiting distractions, slowing your brain down and sparking creativity.

As far as the innovation process goes, writing stuff down can act as a relief valve for brainstorming pressure. Often, in leading up to an Athena Project Event, I’ll ask Sailors if they have any ideas that they want to present and the response that I usually get is “I can’t think of anything.”

I’d say that is unequivocally false. In fact, most of us think of ideas multiple times a day – ways to make things better, ideas to launch a new business, projects to build in your garage – the trouble is that we don’t write the ideas down when we have them and we tend to forget. #JustHumanBeingThings.

The physical act of writing that idea down will slow down your thought process in such a way that will allow you to not only take the idea a step further in the evaluation process for feasibility, but it’ll also help to commit that idea to memory. The simple act of scribbling your idea down will keep it at the forefront of your mind so that the next time you’re asked “What’s your big idea?” you can proudly say “Laser Cats” (or whatever your awesome ideas is – probably not having anything to do with felines or lasers mounted to them).

So, here are a three ways to get writing, if you too choose to resolve to write stuff down as we have:

1. Try Journaling. Most times, when we think of journaling, we picture our little sister’s diary, covered by flowers and glitter in a pink bedroom. Now hear this: Journaling is NOT juvenile. By carving out some time each day to recap the events of the day, you may uncover an important thought that you had or discover a creative solution to a problem that you faced. Then, you could take the idea for a test drive and take note of how it went. In a way, it’s like prototyping!

Moleskines are awesome, but journals and bug books come in all shapes and sizes.

2. Keep a Bug Book. On your next trip to Barnes & Noble (or by asking your Supply team nicely) acquire a small wheelbook that you can keep in your pocket. Then, as you bebop through your day and you see something that doesn’t work right, write it down! Who knows – you may even come up with the solution right then and there. Or, if not, you could break out your bug book when you want to dream up an idea to pitch. Flip the book open and Viola! – There’s a whole list of problems that need fixing! The bug list concept is not new. IDEO’s Tom Kelley talks about it in his book, The Art of Innovation. A running list of things that bug you in a small wheelbook is a source of ideas when you’re looking for a project to tackle. As Kelley says, “Instead of just complaining to yourself, ask yourself, ‘How might I improve this situation?’”

3. Rope Off Some Time To Free Write. Take about 15 to 30 minutes out of your day, unplug, and just write some words on a page. You could scribble about an architectural style you admire, what you’d say to a world leader if you met her, or dream up the story for your next science fiction novel (plotlines including but not limited to Laser Cats). The important thing is to just write. Whether you fancy yourself a creative writer or not, the act of writing will get your brain firing in different ways that may unlock the latent creativity you need to solve that problem, develop that innovative concept or view that challenge in a different way. A quick Google search of “writing prompts” yields a flurry of different sites, subreddits and .pdf files that can get you started!

There are loads of other ways that you can kickstart your writing. We hope that you’ll join us in unlocking the power of the wheelbook and finding new ways to get innovative in 2015.

With Waterfront Athena Seven and athenaTHINK right around the corner (news to follow), there will most certainly be a stage to present those new ideas!

Connect with The Athena Project on Facebook: www.facebook.com/athenanavy or follow us on Twitter: @AthenaNavy. Interested in starting a movement of your own? Message us, or e-mail athenanavy@gmail.com!

Make A Dent From Wherever You Are

By: LT Dave Nobles

Since we’ve started making moves with The Athena Project, I’ve been a bit of a maven for the process. Often, the feedback is great. I see people get energized to participate and/or attend, and they almost immediately launch into impromptu ideation sessions for worthy ideas to showcase to the group.

Sometimes, though, I feel a bit like Harold Hill from The Music Man trying to sell trombones to a town that doesn’t listen to music. Or, more appropriately, a town that jams out to a different style.

Also, I’m told by my Navigator that that reference will be lost on many (Click the link! It’s a great musical!)

I started thinking about what might cause the negative response. Granted, I’m biased, but I believe Athena is a small step toward building the type of intellectually curious Sailor that our Fleet needs.

Part of the cause is the fact that there are folks out there who feel there’s no place for innovation or ideas to bubble up from the deckplates in our organization. They’re few and far between, but they’re there. Honestly, I feel bad for them, and I feel bad for those that have to serve under them. Leaders like that form a thick layer of permafrost in our organization, stifling ideas before they can melt through.

That being said, it’s the person with the idea that’s responsible for “heating it up” enough to break through that frosty layer.

That leads me to the other, more prevalent part. There are innovative minds out there that don’t think they can make a dent, regardless of where they are vertically in an organization. That discouraging thought can result in a failure to launch, a failure to believe that they can make a difference, and ultimately a failure to act.

Well, I’m here to tell you: That just ain’t true.

There are success stories from around our organization about people who have made their marks. Further, we have a rich history of brave innovators from within our ranks breaking through solid layers of icy bureaucracy to swing the hammer. Perhaps the most notable of these stories is the story of Admiral William Sims, who is the namesake of the award that goes to the winner of The Athena Project.

The Admiral’s story has been recounted by many, including this blog entry from the United States Naval Institute, so I’ll summarize. As a Lieutenant in the early 1900s, Sims knew that he had found the answer to gunnery methods that were plaguing our battleships after watching the British operate. He tried to send those concerns up through his chain of command, and they told him to get back in his box.

So, he told the Secretary of the Navy.

And it radically changed the way we fight.

Sims’ story is proof: It doesn’t matter what your rank is, you can make a difference. But you’ll never make a dent if you don’t pick up the hammer. But Sims isn’t the only one: Our Armed Forces are full of stories like this, from Admiral Grace Hopper bringing technology to the Fleet at a junior level to Army soldiers developing the Rhino to protect convoys against heat-activated Improvised Explosive Device (IED) detonations. Good ideas can, and have, been brought to fruition by passionate, junior personnel. These are the “Yelpers” – the people who are passionate enough about their idea to stand up and say something about it.

Damn the red tape, full speed ahead.

The Athena Project is linking up the people with ideas that want to make a dent with “makers” that can give speed to that hammer strike. It’s a place where you can go to present your vision and have it at least be considered by all those other people who are passionate enough about bringing fresh ideas to the Fleet to be there. It’s a place where your whisper turns into a shout, and a place where the connections that we’re welding can lead to some real innovation.

At the risk of transitioning from The Music Man to John Belushi’s famous Animal House speech: Bring your ideas! Present them at Modern Times Brewery on October 25^th in San Diego and make that dent, regardless of where you are. You may be sitting on the next dent that completely changes the game.

If we make enough dents, together we can shape the structure to what we want it to be.

You can like Athena on Facebook: www.facebook.com/athenanavy or follow us on Twitter: @AthenaNavy.

LT Nobles is a Surface Warfare Officer assigned to USS BENFOLD (DDG 65) as Weapons Officer.