DAHLGREN, Va. –
They came with their own backgrounds and areas of expertise: early-career scientists, software developers, mechanical engineers.
Inside the Innovation Lab (iLab) at Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD), in a sea of unfamiliar faces, they sorted themselves into six small groups. Their skillsets would need to complement each other, but they would have to mesh too; these would be their teammates for the duration of the weeklong Workforce Development Innovation Challenge.
Held six times a year, the most recent challenge called for producing a low-budget coffee can radar (CANDAR) to learn and understand how radars operate, then use that knowledge to design an affordable surrogate for electronics testing for high power microwave weapons. They had less than four days to complete the challenge.
The premise: Today’s Navy faces growing threats from drone swarms and advanced missile systems that can overwhelm traditional defenses. To stay ahead of adversaries and provide Sailors a means of ship defense that may never run out of ammunition, the Navy continues to explore directed energy weapons. The goal: smarter, cheaper test targets to help develop the next generation of Navy defense.
“The idea is we are helping them understand how radars work,” said Derek Diltz, chief engineer for the High Power Microwave Weapon Systems Division who served as the challenge mentor.
Armed with criteria and a crash course in collaboration, creative thinking and rapid prototyping, participants had just 30 minutes to split into teams of five to seven members. This story follows one of those groups — Team 2 — as they took on the challenge.
With seven members, the group was among the largest. But it lacked an electrical engineer or anyone with radar experience. Yet the whole is often greater than the sum of its parts.
“We all brought kernels of technical knowledge,” said Abby Thompson, an optomechanical engineer on Team 2.
“It was motivation to prove that we could all chip in and make something work, and I think that was a really inspiring thing,” said Rose Stanphill, a flight systems modeling engineer.
To start, they split into three main groups to tackle three aspects of the project: Antenna design, circuit building and coding. One team member who had taken several electrical engineering classes in college focused on building a breadboard, which is used for prototyping electronic circuits. Two had some experience in coding. When it came time to solder, Hailey Kintz, a scientist, leaned on experience from an art class where she’d had to piece together stained glass.
Over the next few days, the team set milestones and met them. They wired and built and translated code and refined it. When one thing didn’t work they tried another. They tested, troubleshot, tested and troubleshot again. When they faced something particularly difficult, everyone pitched in. When there were too many cooks in the kitchen, they split up and tackled other pressing tasks.
“There was a lot of momentum to start that we used all the way through,” said Trevor Acosta, an optics and photonics engineer. “When we were down, we called for help, and when we were up, we were riding high.”
Because it was an innovation challenge, Team 2 decided not to limit themselves to the coffee cans provided. What, they wondered, if another can size worked better? They calculated. They picked up two more pairs of cans in different sizes and tested all three.
“I don’t like sitting around doing nothing,” said Zachary Mallol, a software developer. “We had already pretty much optimized what we had. It was worth it to me at least to keep on going and optimizing more and doing more.”
Their instincts were right; smaller cans actually worked better than the ones they’d been given.
On Thursday morning, Team 2 headed outdoors. The pavement was already radiating heat. Stanphill sat on the ground in the shade of a small building and opened up a laptop. William Urbanic, a mechanical engineer, went to get his truck, which he drove several times toward the group gathered around Stanphill to see just how well the CANDAR worked. The results were promising.
By early afternoon, when it was time to put their crude radars to the test in a narrow hallway outside the iLab, Team 2 felt ready. They had 20 minutes to show that they’d met the challenge threshold, and perhaps even some of the objectives. They did.
More than that, they’d also practiced collaborative problem solving. They’d gotten out of their comfort zones and formed new connections. These things were just as important as the CANDARs they built. This is what they would take back with them. This is what would see them through real-world challenges within their departments at Dahlgren Division.
Diltz, the chief engineer who’d guided them through the challenge, left all the teams with this: “In my experience, it hasn’t been the pay that has caused me to work long hours. I enjoy the work, the challenge of it and the outcome of it. We had a job to do, and we wanted to get it done. It was the camaraderie of the team and what we were trying to accomplish. It was the benefit to the nation and the warfighter. That’s what keeps me here.”