"To the optimist, the glass is half full. To the pessimist, the
glass is half empty. To the engineer, the glass is twice as big
as it needs to be."
Most everyone who reads this blog has either lived/or is living with an engineer. I'd like to think my life has been enriched because of this.
It's with this, that I want to show you Jim's yearly engineering feat. The pontoon boat needs to be kept unfrozen during the winter months on the lake. This is a perfect job for Jim. He can design, create, redesign, recreate and test for 3 months. Perfect it by spring, then disassemble and think about how to improve it next year.
His first design was to buy a heater for the water (from Rural King….my favorite store…FREE popcorn {did I hear FREE}). This worked well, but then Jim figured out the cost to run this heater and quickly realized he needed a new design. How did he figure out it was expensive to run? He actually sat at his desk and wrote numbers on a paper and did math stuff (probably Calculus….cause he can!!) This was before my blog--otherwise I would have taken a pic.
Scrap the heaters! On to Bubblers! The top picture shows a line between the 2 boats (yes, we're renting/giving space to our neighbors boat) with a device that churns the water. It's placed directely between the two boats. Now let the fun begin---Jim can do what he does best---TEST it! He can adjust a timer to come on whenever he wants to. He started off with Bubbler on for 12 hours, then off for 12 hours. Way over designed! Next iteration- on one hour, off one hour X 24 hours.
Jim can't wait until it gets really cold to see what other changes he can make!
As an engineer, I am PRETTY sure that no calculus was needed to figure out the cost to run the heater. :)
ReplyDelete-Anne