Applications Open for the CNO's Rapid Innovation Cell

[BackOrdered]

All useful, but why not just use an iPad (or equivalent) for those? Existing, proven technology, and surely someone on the bridge team has two hands free to use it. A tablet that has all the manuals and spot check procedures? Ability to call up the Standing Orders without pawing through a binder? Sounds good to me. The benefit of a tablet is that a few people can look at the same app, meaning they only need one device between them when they're all in the same place. But you're right, I didn't stand any surface watches; we intel weenies generally don't get to do that--at least, no one on my ship did--so if there's some u/w watch application that would be improved by instant, one-handed ability to take photos of what the watchstander is seeing, or look up or share information, but that would be hampered by an iPad, I'm all ears.

I know, right? Pretty lucky. But seriously, is Google Glass the best tool?

All the bold speak for itself. I would just cut your loses short if you never stood watch.

The other thing is no, you absolutely don't want your bridge team all staring at the same thing at once at any time. And yes, I would want my hands free to do something else, thus making the Google Glasses a force multiplier for solving a contact solution. Suppose, the surface picture and the Glasses miss a pop up group 3 vessel and I need to get a mo'board on it?

 

[BigRed389]

Why can't you just modify existing display software to accomodate this, instead of investing in Google Glass?

There is a display. It's often broke, and is an old, specialized part. It's also not at all conveniently located for the guy actually giving the commands. You could modify the display, but do you have any idea how freaking hard(and expensive) it is to make any kind of shipboard change the "right" way?

How do you get Google Glass and SRPM/pitch to 'talk' when the ship is not built to wirelessly transmit that data?

Too easy. Either tap the data stream to wirelessly transmit or just mount a camera. You can rocket surgery it or redneck engineer it.

Can't possibly fix this by modifying training? If surface ships use similar CCS as us, couldn't they just speak in relative bearings just the same, especially since the CCS can easily display both values instead of making the OOD mentally calculate the difference?

Sure, but seconds count when you're engaging fast boats. This one's a bit far fetched anyway, I was really thinking of a GCO taking control of a CIWS and other Remote Weapons Systems (25mm) like an Apache pilot does with his gun. Not likely but would be cool, would make things better. A CIWS gunner tying his video feed to make sure you shoot THIS boat not THAT boat from a topside controller's feed would be an intermediate step.

I can't speak for Navy wide, but in our community if a Sailor is having a procedure read to him, it's so that the reader (usually the more senior) can circle-x the steps and provide backup if he's about to jack it up. So an iPAD with check-boxes would be more appropriate, but then we go back to "just make a copy and put it on a clipboard and spend the $400 elsewhere."

And yet we still manage to screw up maintenance procedures while we have scaled back maintenance man training. My personal choice would be for Youtube style step by step maintenance videos, regardless of output format. Would you be onboard with that "innovation?"
Having done the Youtube video thing to do valve clearance on my bike, I would've killed to have had hands free to work.


And innovating processes without at least DH level approval is a big nono. The latter can be fixed with a culture shift, but now you have to convince the heavies to allow any Sailor to do alts to your expensive, proprietary goggles with the risk of damaging them.

I think the whole point of the CRIC is to not have to go through all the NAVAIR/NAVSEA crap. If I told you how hard our "heavies" have made it to approve putting a Goretex cover on a topside electronic component that has demonstrated operational suitability, your head might explode. The staffing requirements to get any substantial new effort off the ground are not trivial.

If you don't know the RoR and COSO, you shouldn't be standing watch.You don't pull out the rules of the road in the middle of the highway while driving your car, do you? VMS mirroring already exists, and VMS already displays CPA through the target data pair function (a relatively useless function that clutters the screen if PADs are on and set to a useful value, which they should be). Additionally, an iPAD is better for manuals as mentioned before -- presumably you'd be looking through a PDF of these documents and would need to get to the appropriate page quickly.

No argument there. But if I'm conning alongside and can view the radar picture simultaneously, I can cut the JOOD (whose sole purpose in life it is to stare at the radar and monitor radios) off the UNREP watchbill. I had the mental capacity to spare, but I couldn't be in two places at once. It's a big problem on ship bridges, SA tools aren't integrated and are placed all over without a whole lot of thought. I'm not Larry Page...so if it's an iPad instead, whatever, doesn't bother me. Given a choice, I'd rather have hands free to use binos, use radios, etc. though.

This is the crux of the issue. What problem are you trying to solve that can only be done with a tech that hasn't been released yet? It seems instead that you're trying to make the problems match the solution, cuz Google Glass is what the cool kids wear. And I'm sorry, but that's exactly what a lot of the top brass do with their pet projects -- we need this because I thought of it and it's different, not because it necessarily solves anything.

You need experimentation to happen some way. Maybe Google Glass isn't "the" solution, but at the very least, getting ahead of the "mobile/personal" computer wave is not a bad thing. I'm also happy that senior leadership is onboard with conducting experimentation to give us payoff later on down the road. I'm glad they're willing to see if there are ways to do things better than the way we've always done things.
I'm pretty sure if I looked hard enough I could dig up some posts from you complaining about this piece of gear or this process being broken. I'd rather we have some people trying to look at ways to make things better than crying about how much everything sucks.

 

[BackOrdered]

At this point, I think you guys are arguing for the sake of arguing.

Rather than LET73 speculating having never stood surface watch, and Spekkio comparing aloft topside surface ship maintenance ETs perform to the towering dizzying heights of sub maintenance, lets let the TCs team look into it and comeback to us. Every time you guys say something, the TCs investigations make more and more sense.

 

[LET73]

All the bold speak for itself. I would just cut your loses short if you never stood watch.

The other thing is no, you absolutely don't want your bridge team all staring at the same thing at once at any time. And yes, I would want my hands free to do something else, thus making the Google Glasses a force multiplier for solving a contact solution. Suppose, the surface picture and the Glasses miss a pop up group 3 vessel and I need to get a mo'board on it?

Well, the Glasses didn't really help in that case, did they? I can see where it would be helpful to use the Google Glasses moboard app while still watching the vessel... but I think a tablet based app would be quicker and less cumbersome.

And I don't think anyone's holding an iPad in both hands unable to do anything else while standing a bridge watch, or that the entire watch team is clustered around staring at it. It's there for anyone to look at who needs to, just like any other display. I'm not convinced that Google Glasses beat other technology when you've got a group of people in close proximity who can look at the same display and talk to each other (although like I said, I definitely do see applications for it). But, I'll shut up and all you real watchstanders can be grateful that my opinion on this doesn't really go any farther than this message board.

 

[BackOrdered]

Well, the Glasses didn't really help in that case, did they? I can see where it would be helpful to use the Google Glasses moboard app while still watching the vessel... but I think a tablet based app would be quicker and less cumbersome.

I could quiz you on what surface picture means in terms of shipboard sensors, but I already know your answer.

I'll shut up and all you real watchstanders can be grateful that my opinion on this doesn't really go any farther than this message board.

Bingo!

 

[helolumpy]

A few years back in the late 90's a bunch of RAG IP's were sitting around and wondering what happened to Naval Aviation. The folks coming into the community seemed different from who we were and those who went before us.
One IP who's now an O-6 on his way to major command said that somewhere along the way Naval Aviation has changed it culture. It used to be 'the baseball team'; it's now become 'the computer club'. After reading these posts, I never realized how correct he was.

 

[Spekkio]

Red, I agree with you that it's impossible to get things altered 'the right way,' but isn't Google Glass a high-priced band-aid for much of what you say? Your argument seems to boil down to the fact that institutional inertia prevents optimizing existing display location, hardware reliability, and software, so instead of correcting why it's so damn hard to get the Navy to let you put a gortex cover on an electronic display or add a parameter to a software display, lets spend money on Google Glass to cover it up. Additionally, you say that getting a software update to a display or getting a VMS repeater moved to a better location in a shipalt is next to impossible (and I agree), but then gloss over the fact that the Navy will have to shipalt the SRPM and propeller pitch to output wifi? I don't believe the latter is 'easier' or 'cheaper' from a process standpoint. I also don't think that once you start down the road of customizing Google Glass to meet Navy operational requirements that the pricetag will stay at the estimated $500 price-point...I easily see it ballooning to 5-10x that much to pay all those contractors to make it do what we want it to do.

As for the youtube style videos to assist someone performing maintenance, I would counter that we pay CPOs for that. If an E-2-E-5 is performing maintenance for the first time without his Chief or leading first watching/teaching, even if he had a video instruction, the Chief is screwing up.

I can see where the HUD can be useful when performing some procedures/maintenance (as you said, piloting/unrep/flight op scenarios when you want to stay focused on what you're looking at without having to station a button of watchstanders), but there is the whole challenge of getting all those systems to talk. Also, call me cynical but I also picture the generation of 'old guys' making those button of extra watchstanders write that stuff down anyway as a backup incase the battery goes dead on your Google Glass or the software crashes. So we're essentially just adding another layer to the problem of un-optimized displays. As far as maintenance goes, I believe we've gone too far in the way of relying on the circle-x cruch vice in-rate expertise (why learn this when I'll just have the book out?), and Google Glass is another step in the wrong direction in that regard.

My point is that Google Glass itself doesn't bring a whole lot to the table in itself, but it does spray some air freshener on the pile of poo that have become some of our poor processes.

And yes, I would want my hands free to do something else, thus making the Google Glasses a force multiplier for solving a contact solution. Suppose, the surface picture and the Glasses miss a pop up group 3 vessel and I need to get a mo'board on it?

Don't you guys have radar? It gives you a contact solution just fine and outputs it to both VMS and CCS, both of which can do trial solutions much faster than you can do a moboard. People do moboards just so we understand radar and don't lose the skillset, not because it's going to give you a hidden answer that our technology can't.

 

[BigRed389]

A few years back in the late 90's a bunch of RAG IP's were sitting around and wondering what happened to Naval Aviation. The folks coming into the community seemed different from who we were and those who went before us.
One IP who's now an O-6 on his way to major command said that somewhere along the way Naval Aviation has changed it culture. It used to be 'the baseball team'; it's now become 'the computer club'. After reading these posts, I never realized how correct he was.

This threadjack is brought to you by a SWO, sub, Supply dude, and Intel weenie. I don't think you've lost any cool points out of this exchange.

BIG WORDS

Dude, this is already going way longer than it should so I'm going to leave it at the LCS motto: Experiment a little, learn a lot. We're not going to learn anything if we don't even try, and the fact that JOs get to decide where the train is headed is pretty freaking "different" for the Navy.

 

[e6bflyer]

I, for one, think this whole thing is a great idea. Not to fondle Ben's balls too much, but CRIC is a workaround for everything that is wrong and broken with military acquisition, which is almost completely fucked.
It gets good ideas to the fleet fast.
It doesn't involve politics outside the few people who directly work with it.
The money doesn't appear to be a problem.
If a project fails, it isn't a big deal, it is part of the process and expected.
Because there aren't a thousand hands in the pot, you don't have to worry about requirements creep, gold plating, and political posturing.

Military Acquisiton is, for better or worse, the only way that we currently have to get huge projects and weapons systems to the end user. Smaller projects and improvements shouldn't be subject to that abortion of a process. I am a fan and I hope it has a future. All you nay sayers are stuck in the old way of doing things.

 

[Brett327]

Military Acquisiton is, for better or worse, the only way that we currently have to get huge projects and weapons systems to the end user. Smaller projects and improvements shouldn't be subject to that abortion of a process. I am a fan and I hope it has a future. All you nay sayers are stuck in the old way of doing things.

Well said.

 

[wlawr005]

There was a time, long ago, when people not only thought airplanes were stupid, but had no place on the battlefield. Kudos to your shiny new innovation team...I hope you guys help shape what the 22nd century is going to look like.

Disregard those who say there is no place for new ideas, new technologies, or completely new methods to doing business.

 

[Renegade One]

I, for one, think this whole thing is a great idea...but CRIC is a workaround for everything that is wrong and broken with military acquisition, which is almost completely fucked.
It gets good ideas to the fleet fast.
It doesn't involve politics outside the few people who directly work with it.
The money doesn't appear to be a problem.
If a project fails, it isn't a big deal, it is part of the process and expected.
Because there aren't a thousand hands in the pot, you don't have to worry about requirements creep, gold plating, and political posturing.

For the underlined part…probably not.
Can we just watch for a bit, before we declare victory?

Military Acquisition is, for better or worse, the only way that we currently have to get huge projects and weapons systems to the end user.

^^^ This part is factually true.

Smaller projects and improvements shouldn't be subject to that abortion of a process. I am a fan and I hope it has a future. All you nay sayers are stuck in the old way of doing things.

I agree…I think I may be a fan too, even though...if "not stuck"...I was at least raised in "the old ways"…which had pluses and minuses, to be sure...

I, too, hope it works well enough to actually have a future beyond the current CNO. Too many other sparky ideas never outlasted the visionary senior sponsor.

Notable exceptions:
1. The whole thingie about the nuclear Navy. Rickover may have been many things, but he crafted a vision and changed the Navy. And the beat goes on… OBTW…I don't thing ADM Rickover EVER uttered the mantra "Failure is expected." Just saying...
2. Navy Fighter Weapons Schools (and the spawn...)

 

[ben4prez]

Can we just watch for a bit, before we declare victory?

Ironically, I would agree wholeheartedly with this statement...the tenure of this CNO notwithstanding, and the vagaraties of sequestration funding being what they are, we, like every new program are always teetering on the edge...

 

[e6bflyer]

For the underlined part…probably not.
Can we just watch for a bit, before we declare victory?


^^^ This part is factually true.


I agree…I think I may be a fan too, even though...if "not stuck"...I was at least raised in "the old ways"…which had pluses and minuses, to be sure...

I, too, hope it works well enough to actually have a future beyond the current CNO. Too many other sparky ideas never outlasted the visionary senior sponsor.

Notable exceptions:
1. The whole thingie about the nuclear Navy. Rickover may have been many things, but he crafted a vision and changed the Navy. And the beat goes on… OBTW…I don't thing ADM Rickover EVER uttered the mantra "Failure is expected." Just saying...
2. Navy Fighter Weapons Schools (and the spawn...)

Not declaring victory. Acquisiton is so broken that there is no way of fixing it outside of scuttling the whole damn thing and starting fresh. It is the perfect example of what happens when the military becomes a bloated beaurocracy mired in political shit. It is a dirty, f'ed up process that has royally shown its ass in the past decade, but yet we march on with no end in sight. We need more projects like the super hornet and P-8 and less like the new tanker, JSF, and the like. Unfortunately for us, we are hamstrung by our retarded political leadership that holds the purse strings.

 

[helolumpy]

I, for one, think this whole thing is a great idea. Not to fondle Ben's balls too much, but CRIC COULD BE workaround for everything that is wrong and broken with military acquisition, which is almost completely fucked.

Never speak in “definites” when dealing with the gov't.