Jon Michael Lockey

West Point, 1985

Be Thou At Peace

Posted by Karson Snyder on July 31, 2007:

Unfortunately, I only got to know Jon during Firstie year, when he and I were in an Engineering Management class (EN401?) together. I think our P was LTC Grubbs. Anyway, Jon and John Knotts and I ended up working as a team on the class project, which in our case was to build a small car capable of negotiating an obstacle course with water, sand, glass, and a few other things. They gave us a motor and a few basic materials to start with. We came up with a fast little buggy that did really well on the course - literally lept off or over the obstacles. Our P was impressed. We were happy. But then we had to turn in our final report, which was supposed to include all the formulae and theories we used to design our item. So, we thought hard over some Mountain Dew and jotted down a few things to show center of gravity, maybe F=m*a, and whatever else looked good. Our P didn't write much red, except for a giant "BS!!" on the front and a few questions like, "where are your supporting equations?!!?" We claimed that we had used the "iterative prototype method" of design, meaning "trial and error." We thought that was a good term! But what saved us was the then-high-speed graphics in our report. Jon was a computer science major, so he had access to the big stand-alone computer in Washington Hall that had a plotter. I'm sure it had the computing capability of a 486 processor or something, but in 1984 it was C&GS's pride and joy. Anyway, the graphics of our car, plotted in full color, got us great reveiews from our P, with laudatory comments all over. I suppose it qualified for an early attempt at Computer Assisted Design, so at least we were able to stay pro and graduate on time (which was a high priority for John Knotts and me, as Jon had an easy cruise to graduation). I still have the project folder for "The Rover," so now I'll treat it with especially good care. I am sure Jon was having a great time in Iraq, and those around him probably were, too. He's just fun to work with. I was looking forward to catching him at an upcomnig reunion sometime, so now I guess I'm a bit late. But take care up there, Jon, and those of us lucky enough in life to join you up there will be looking forward to catching up with you and keeping any squids up there on their toes. Nagyon jo, Janos! Sziastok. Karson Snyder '85

admin