Over the last month I got to design an oceanography research drone. It is only 157″  long and carries a research cargo that I am not allowed to show. Oddly it is aluminum. The builders of the whole package were open to composite but the end users insisted on doing alloy.

This was the project that crashed both Microstation and Vacanti’s B-Plates program. Both companies seem to have given up on a solution. Among other problems, Microstation seemed unable to export any usable non-native surface nor solid format. I ended up only able to export the chine splines and customer had to make surfaces there. You would think that level of fail would be shareware, not a $5000 program.  Attempting all manner of work-arounds took longer than the actual billable work.

The notch aft is for an azmuth drive.