The Human-powered Submarine

from On the Water (257 articles)

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An early prototype in the design process, without the sophisticated oar-structure

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Swedish designer Milko Ozlu has always been intrigued by the concept of the powered exoskeleton and body amplifiers. When the US Military experimented with the springwalker concept in the late 1980s, Ozlu was fascinated, though it was long before he studied for his BA in industrial design at Konstfack in Stockholm. His ideas followed through and when he was studying for his masters degree at the vehicle design department of the world-renowned Royal College of Art in London, it resulted in one of the most interesting degree projects we’ve seen – the U-Scull, a new type of human powered sports-submarine that operates in shallow depths.

We fully expected that Milko would have been inspired in his work by the Drebbel submarines built in 1620 ()but that was not the case. “The Drebbel submarine was something that I ran into when I did research for my final year degree work but I had no knowledge of it when I first started the submarine project,” Milko told Gizmag.

“There was another human powered submarine from history that really fascinated me – the US Confederate Submarine H.L. Hunley, that was powered by eight men. That was really interesting in light of the work I’d done, but the birth of my idea and inspiration for the design came from elsewhere.”

“The idea came from a metaphor project at RCA (Royal College of Art) where you pick a word and design a vehicle based on that word. Usually, a design is made to service a perceived need in the market or for to cater to a specific target group of people. In this case we were asked to understand the spirit of our inspiration, in my case the word “rhythm” This word led me to an image in my head of a vehicle echoing the rhythm of the passengers inside.”

“This in turn, became the vision of a “swimming machine” – a body amplifier - and part of that inspiration was the springwalker.

“I was very intrigued by the springwalker as a transportation device and I had a vision of something similar for underwater use – something that used mechanics and technology that harbours and amplifies the power of the people inside it.”

But for my degree project the last thing I wanted to do was an engineering exercise. Something like a submarine, can be designed almost purely with mathematical equations. I wanted to keep it at a visionary level, tight to the theme of the body amplifier “.

Two oarsmen power the Uscull, with a sliding seat motion similar to that of sculling. It’s not expected that a great deal of expertise or tuition would really be necessary for someone to power the Uscull, but in the initial stages one of the prerequisites would be a scuba diving license and a short introduction course. After that, the two passengers would be ready for the water.

Rowing is widely recognised as a sport that optimises the full output of the human body. “Successful rowing requires full output of the human body”, says Milko, “and the sliding seats of sculls facilitates extremely efficient and dynamic movement of the human body for maximum power output. The motion and rhythm of rowing is the most efficient and dynamic movement the human body can make. This is why rowing was chosen to power the Uscull.”

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