Don’t Mock Me

After hours of watching some of the most mismatched football teams in New Year Day History, I returned to figuring out how we might just possibly design a rover wheel that would really turnover. In NASA Speak, we are talking ‘revolve’. That’s right Mr. White, the Self Driving Wheel (SDW) is required by the NASA Spec to revolve. All along keeping in the back of our very imperfect brain; it must also self-propel. And, I am OK with that.

Looking back at our incredibly sophisticated PowerPoint drawing, we see a basic concept of a SDW, but this is far from an engineering drawing. And, unfortunately, I was a business major and not an engineering major. Huge gap right there when it comes to designing and fabricating a Mars rover. Poor Bob has a big strike against him even before he meets Matt Damon and the Poop Potato Farm.

Having zero training in anything like engineering, as a business major I must approach the project like Microsoft does. First announce a new revolutionary new product to the world. And, we have done that with the earlier introduction of Bob Rover/Rover Bob (Bob) and like MSFT, we will simply start building shit and throwing that shit against the wall. Of course you and I know that at some point something, most likely shit, will stick to that wall and for reasons that totally escape me, we can call that a success. Unless, that shit hits the fan a that implies failure.

• To recap: Throwing shit against the wall until something sticks is success. Hitting a fan with shit is failure. Note to self. Put fan in garage.

Time to regain focus here Grasshopper. In NASA speak, we are talking building a mock up. For me, and like Microsoft, we are most likely talking about a succession of mock ups. One friggin mock up after another. Deep in the Wailer Skunk Works we call useless mock ups Focked Up. Used in a sentence. ‘Version 2.1 is a Fock Up Mock Up (FUMU)’. Not to be confused with that Jimmy Buffet rum drink.

But Wait!! What Do We Have Here?

Maybe a not-so-FUMU.