OpenROV

We want to give you an ROV!

Posted on by Andrew Thaler

Sofar Ocean Trident
What will you explore?

If you have access to a small, observation-class remotely operated vehicle to explore the ocean, where would you go? Would you use it to discover something new about marine ecosystems? Would you give students the opportunity to journey beneath the waves and learn about their local waterways? Would you hunt for lost lobster traps, track ocean plastic, deliver sensor payloads down into the mesophotic zone, or identify and protect critical spawning habitats?

Or would you undertake an expedition so novel that it has yet to be conceived?

Conservation X Labs in collaboration with Schmidt Marine Technologies and Sofar Ocean is delivering 20 Sofar Ocean Trident ROVs to researchers (both formal and informal), educators, citizen scientists, and ocean conservationist to help further projects to study, understand, or protect the marine environment, with a broad focus on marine conservation. Grant recipients will receive a Trident ROV with all the fixings!

Sofar Ocean Trident represents the next-generation of underwater drone. It is an out-of-the-box solution for ocean stakeholders that can perform many of the same functions of major research ROVs for a fraction of the cost and with no specialized training. Small enough to be stored in carry-on baggage, the ROV is extremely portable and has been deployed from vessels ranging in size from small kayaks to ocean-class research vessels to Polynesian voyaging canoes. Trident is fast, with simple controls. It is rated to 100m. The vehicle provides live video footage to the pilot through a kevlar-reinforced tether which can also serve as a recovery line. It has a series of ventral M3 mounting points that allow users to affix a variety of sensors, collectors, and payloads to expand its utility. It is one of the few consumer accessible vehicles capable of performing scientific research, documentary observation, conservation monitoring, and exploration from the surface of the ocean down into the mesophotic zone.

The application is simple and streamlined to get you out exploring the ocean.

Apply today and let’s discover the ocean together!

Emerging technologies for exploration and independent monitoring of seafloor extraction in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction

Posted on by Andrew Thaler

[The following is a transcript from a talk I gave at the 2019 Minerals, Materials, and Society Symposium at the University of Delaware in August, 2019. It has been lightly edited for clarity.]

Good afternoon and thank you all for coming. I want to change tracks for a bit and scan the horizon to think about what the future of exploration and monitoring in the high seas might look like because ocean and conservation technology is in the midst of an evolutionary shift in who has access to the tools necessary to observe the deep ocean.

This is the Area. Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction, International Waters, the High Seas, the Outlaw Ocean. It’s the portion of the ocean that falls outside of national EEZs and is held in trust by the UN under the Convention on the Law of the Sea as the Common Heritage of Humankind. It covers 64% of the ocean and nearly half of the total surface of the Earth. It’s also the region in which most major deep-sea mining ventures intend to operate.

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Youth v Gov, thinking about oysters, how to talk climate change to radicalized conservatives, delightful dumbo octopuses, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: October 29, 2018.

Posted on by Andrew Thaler

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

A lava flow detected in the Mariana back-arc that’s evidence for the deepest historic eruption ever detected. Photo: Courtesy Bill Chadwick

A lava flow detected in the Mariana back-arc that’s evidence for the deepest historic eruption ever detected. Photo: Courtesy Bill Chadwick.

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I made a ridiculous Glowing Wall Mount for my OpenROV Trident!

Posted on by Andrew Thaler

Because OpenROV Trident is a work of art and should be displayed as such when not on deployment. This was my first big design project using the Glowforge and integrating LED strips

If you have a Trident, you can download the plans and bill of materials right here: OpenROV Trident Glowing Wall Mount.

More importantly, if you don’t have a Trident, allow me to direct you to the SEE Initiative. OpenROV and National Geographic are giving away 1000 free Tridents to scientists, educators, and explorers. Apply today and let’s have an adventure together!

I want you to have amazing adventures with underwater robots, protecting the oceans like national parks, songs of a ice and warming, cannibals, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: October 22, 2018.

Posted on by Andrew Thaler

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

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The rise of low-cost ROVs and community submersibles

Posted on by Andrew Thaler

The following appeared this Monday on the DSM Observer, the only trade journal committed to covering all aspects of the emerging deep-sea mining industry. Though written for the deep-sea mining community, the subject is broadly relevant to a host of ocean industries, so we reprint it below. 

The submarine Noctiluca cruises across the surface. Photo Courtesy Shanee Stopnitzky.

The submarine Noctiluca cruises across the surface. Photo Courtesy Shanee Stopnitzky.

As a community, we discuss mining, management, and monitoring, as well as the regulations that shape them, in terms of governments, major corporations, and research institutions. The deep-sea mining community is small and the complexities of working at abyssal depths engenders collaboration, cooperation, and, in the case of exploitation, compromise. While there are many stakeholders potentially affected by deep-sea mining, only a small proportion of them will ever directly engage with the deep seafloor.

A few extremely wealthy individuals have access to private submersibles and ROVs and have on occasion made them available for research and exploration, but they are the exception. The tools necessary to reach the depths of a hydrothermal vent or polymetallic nodule field are simply too expensive.

That may soon change.

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We Robot, a horrible hagfish massacre, deep, delicious sandwiches, fish slime harvests, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: September 10, 2018.

Posted on by Andrew Thaler

Foghorn (a call to action)

The U.S. is turning a significant portion of Micronesia into live fire and bombing ranges to train Marines. It has plans to completely take over one island for this purpose and has control of two-thirds of another island.

If people in the U.S. mainland understood the military’s plan for Micronesia they might be alarmed. But this is really happening to U.S. citizens living in America’s territories.

(source)

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

The Levee (news from LUMCON)

LUMCON’s DeFelice Marine Center, flooded, as seen from a dormitory balcony. (Photo: Courtesy of LUMCON)

LUMCON’s DeFelice Marine Center, flooded, as seen from a dormitory balcony. (Photo: Courtesy of LUMCON)

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