College started back up so I have been very busy - I am taking 6 classes with a total of 18 credits. That is the equivalent of academic suicide, sacrifice of social life, and mass anxiety all wrapped up into a semester. Just to add to the mix is some personal time invested into learning programming in Visual Studio (which will make me more employable) and off time invested into being a Shaman in World of Warcraft. (It is more epic than it sounds)
I am still thinking very much about this project though. I feel as if the original top deck model is subpar so I was in the progress of making it again from scratch. I am lacking progress due to my own limitations in modeling smooth continuous surfaces in CAD. I began using T-Splines to model the top deck. It is a very intuitive method of solid modeling, but the popular methods really require a defined set of geometry. (Such that the curves are defined in each plane, much like a blueprint) and my artistic skills are lacking to go at it freehand. It's not impossible to achieve, it just requires some experimenting to find a striking design.
One method I tried was to find blueprints of a stand up jet ski and then redefine the curvature to stray from being an exact replica of the subject's hull. One reason to alter the geometry is to be polite and not rip off other people's designs .. I am not opposed to copying a Yamaha Superjet or Kawasaki SXR since I think the amount of sales won't upset anyone in corporate. The problem with either method is that there is no existing blueprints and I don't know how to do it without some kind of expensive process of reverse engineering (laser scanners generating 3D point cloud data).
My vision is that there will be two different versions of the RC jet ski. One is a RTR version with a brushed motor/nimh batteries. That configuration is more user friendly since lipoly have been known to have certain issues. It is also a bit cheaper for people that aren't in the category of "enthusiast".
The second version would have a brushless motor/lipoly battery and would be sold as a kit. This configuration would probably be in the "enthusiast" category since the customer would be interested in the performance of the hull and enjoys the tinkering/building process. I think the enthusiasts are evident if you just look at the other builds in this forum.
