Photo By Senior Airman Derrick Bole | From left, U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Phillip Wise, 6th Civil Engineer Squadron...... read more read more
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MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. – MacDill Bolt Cell opened today!
The Bolt Cell is MacDill’s new spark cell unit, designed and ready to foster change and innovation around the base and Air Force-wide.
U.S. Air Force Col. Adam Bingham, 6th Air Refueling Wing commander, and U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Taylor Johnston, 6th ARW chief of innovations, marked the official opening of the unit here today, Jan. 20, 2023.
Spark cells gather Airmen from around their respective bases to come up with solutions for daily problems, big and small, at their units.
“Our number one priority is you [Airmen],” said Johnston. “We want to solve Airmen’s problems with either tech, money, or process. If you come to us with a problem, we’ll help you solve it.”
The Bolt Cell helps MacDill and the Air Force achieve U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. CQ Brown, Jr.’s goal of accelerate change or lose.
“If we don’t innovate and change now, we’ve already lost the next fight,” Johnston said.
The Bolt Cell is already working on more than 40 projects. Each project brings innovation to MacDill by connecting units with civilian contractors, the University of Southern Florida, or other Air Force bases around the nation.
“We have got a lot of things planned for this next fiscal year, from automating a KC-135 to bringing augmented and virtual reality to the 6th Logistics Readiness Squadron and the fire department,” Johnston said. “I want to implement these types of technologies into our day-to-day lives.”
Currently, the Bolt Cell is working with USF and the 6th Civil Engineer Squadron to help explosive ordnance disposal Airmen develop an improved backpack for the field.
“The I1B1 we use couldn’t stand and we didn’t have antennas that we could stand up, either,” said U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Phillip Wise, 6th CES EOD team leader. “So we reached out to Bolt Cell, and they got us hooked up with [USF].”
Wise explained that the I1B1 backpack emits an electromagnetic signal to counter radio-controlled IEDs, preventing them from communicating to transmitters and that it uses a set of dual radio antennas to emit the signal.
An EOD specialist needs to take the backpack off while addressing a suspicious package to avoid connectivity risks, but the antennas need to stand vertically to transmit the signal. This posed a problem, so the unit contacted Johnston.
Johnston connected EOD to a three-man team from USF to develop a portable attachment to the bag they call the Vertical Stabilization System allowing it to be taken off and stood upright while a suspicious package is being worked on.
The team has been working with EOD on a solution since August, and their product could impact service members throughout the DoD.
This partnership is one of many that the Bolt Cell wants to establish to develop innovation. Johnston stressed that the Bolt Cell will drop what they’re doing for an Airman that comes to their office looking for a solution to their unit’s problems.
“We have to find a way to innovate past ‘that’s the way we’ve always done it,’” Johnston said.
For more information, contact the Bolt Cell at (813) 828-8152 or visit their office in Hangar 4.
| Date Taken: | 01.20.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 01.20.2023 14:03 |
| Story ID: | 437016 |
| Location: | MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, FLORIDA, US |
| Web Views: | 377 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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