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One-Parameter Spreadsheet Design Files
Spreadsheets can be used in a variety of ways. Apart from the instructional and research files in this site, one that I came up with is spreadsheets as tools for basic construction design (thereby avoiding the fact that I have at best amateur skills in engineering and architecture, not to mention that I never bothered to learn CAD-CAM). In any case, the following two files reflect some of my interest in historical technology.
Design Your Own Gurage House
As a secondary school Peace Corps volunteer teacher in Emdeber, Shoa province, Ethiopia in the mid-1960's, I developed a lasting interest in the graceful traditional thatched roof houses, or "sauer bét", of the local Gurage (pronounced "Goorahgay") people. I not only lived for almost four years in such a house, but went on to write an article on their construction, which was published in the Journal of Ethiopian Studies in 1969. These houses have not only appealing aesthetics. They also are remarkably cool during the heat of the day and can be heated easily at night with a wood burning fireplace hearth on the floor in the center of the house. The accompanying spreadsheet file is organized in such a way that all you have to do is select the diameter of the house and, with known values of materials unit prices, the file will generate all of the required materials and total cost net of the labor and site. Gurage House Designer.
Design Your Own Chesapeake Bay Skipjack Sailboat
A second one-parameter spreadsheet file I developed came in response to my interest in the historical skipjack sailboats of the Cheapeake Bay. These boats, which were built largely between the 1880's and the 1920's, were designed to harvest oysters using only sail power to operate a dredge. Once numerous, the number of registered skipjacks still licenced by the State of Maryland has since dwindled to no more than two dozen. These boats, with their wide beams, shallow draft, and large sails, can still be seen on the Bay, and are a sight to see during the Labor Day skipjack race off Chance, at Deal Island, Maryland. With this file, all you need to do is select the length of the boat and the other basic proportions from sail area to beam and weight will be generated automatically. I did not assemble sub-components such as number of ribs, quantity of board-feet of wood, or the materials cost of a boat. I did include some comparative data based on Janet Mauch's Sailboat Guide for pleasure craft, and data compiled on Pat Vojtech's book, Chesapeake Bay Skipjacks. The latter were particularly useful in deriving the formula proportions used in the designer file. Skipjack Sailboat Designer
A pdf file that provides details on the history of Chesapeake Bay Skipjacks and the dataset and images on which the spreadsheet model has been based can be found at: PLBSkipjackDesignerDocument.pdf
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