First seen on a computer screen in the MnT lab, we were inspired by the ‘Rolling Ball’ designed by SUTD; the concept of movement by this land rover similar to the fictitious BB-8 character in Star Wars.
and with that, we decided we could model it and do the same thing with our boat!
We met in a room and discussed for a good 3hours, sitting round a computer and throwing out our best ideas; how it would move in the water, the placement of pedals, the change in direction, the mechanism of how the pedals will move…
and after presenting our ideas to Dr Ho and Tony, we were met with another wave of hard hit realization: boats do not tend to be circular, for the very reason of the need to break symmetry for easier movement and direction control.
its probably not what we googled, but we concluded it was probably an engineering and design thing, since most boats — or infact, rarely any boats are circular. Most boats are streamlined, with a sharp front to slice through the water.
I guess that was the first thing we learnt. While our boat will not be as original, it will at least be functional. Thinking we could be creative with the boat design meant we forgo years of boat engineering that has refined the shape of boats today. While out of the box ideas were innovative and interesting concepts, it neglected a lot of engineering considerations — and for us, it was back to the drawing board again.