Over the past 75 years, just about every Navy warship has spent some time, in miniature form, in this pool in Bethesda.

That would be the David Taylor Model Basin, built so that naval engineers could perfect their designs in the nautical equivalent of a wind tunnel. Testing of miniature models is a surprisingly important element in shipbuilding, and defense contractors have tested every Navy ship in this half-mile long tunnel prior to construction.

The David Taylor Model Basin is one of the largest of these testing facilities in the world. Intricately controlled waves are generated at one end by a pneumatic wavemaker, and absorbed on the other by a damper. The wavemaker can precisely simulate a range of weather conditions to assess performance on the open seas or in a hurricane force storm. A sliding platform that bridges the oblong pool moves with the models and gathers data using high speed cameras and sensors.