The Development of the UB explorer submarine began in 1997 and was completed in 1998, by a marine biologist, inventor, and entrepreneur named Alan Winick. Alan was born in 1956, in Brooklyn, NY; Now he is married to his wife, Pamela, with 4 children. The vision of building a submarine began for Alan as a Child, watching a TV show called the Undersea World, he was fascinated and gained enough curiosity to explore unhospitable lifeforms, which led him to build a submarine out of plywood. With little to no experience and resources, Alan failed in achieving this dream at the time; Nevertheless, he stayed relentless in his goal, gathering financial aid, reaching out to others with more experience, and closing the knowledge gap he needed to construct the submarine.
Alan now believes when inventing, two criteria must be established: Safety and Form following function, which states that the design concept must be less important than the mechanism itself. Following these criteria, Alan had performed multiple dives with the explorer exceeding 115 feet in depth before his first official display at the Norwalk Aquarium. Alan spent up to 10 years in the Aquarium educating the youth on the function of the Explorer. During his time at the Norwalk Aquarium is where he met Professor Jani Pallis, who is the Associate Mechanical Engineering Professor for the University of Bridgeport, and where he decided to utilize the explorer as a great resource to students in the engineering, marine science, and human biology sector.
The explorer is currently stationed at the University of Bridgeport’s Engineering lab where re-innovations are being made to it by the students – More advanced technology is being installed to the model, advancements are being made to surface communications and navigation capabilities, refurbishing and component maintenance is ongoing and an unmanned system is being implemented.
