Education - underseaROV

09/12/201909/12/2019

Student ROV events

There are more and more STEM programs emerging, focusing on underwater robotics challenges for students. Here is a quick list:

2020 Sea Perch Competition (Yrs 6 to 12, May 30-31 – College Park, MD, USA)
National Underwater Robotics Challenge (Yrs 8 to adult, June 5-7 – Mesa, AZ, USA)
2020 MATE ROV Competition (Yrs 5 to 12, June 25-27 – Villanova, PA, USA)
Robosub (Yrs 8 to university, August 3-9 – San Diego, CA, USA)
Subs In Schools (Yrs 5 to 12, various events from Sep to Dec – Australia)

Good luck!

26/11/201926/11/2019

Piglet Squid

Life is so AMAZING and scientists are still discovering such unusual creatures underwater:

Helicocranchia sp. spotted at ~1500m near Palmyra Atoll in the Pacific Remote Islands Monument

21/10/201921/10/2019

Citizen Science Projects

It is very exciting to see more Citizen Science projects happening around Australia and globally. Here are just a few:

21-27 Oct 2019: Birdlife Australia’s AussieBackyard Bird Count (this week)
08-17 Nov 2019: the Australian Museum’s FrogID Week
Ongoing: Support Our Sharks’ SharkBase

You can also check out the Australian Citizen Science Association for other projects near you.

21/10/201921/10/2019

Dinner at >3000m

So great to hear such excitement in the voices of the NOAA researchers!

Whale Fall Actively Devoured by Scavengers at Davidson Seamount
Whale look what we have here! During the final dive of this year’s Nautilus expedition season, our team discovered a whale fall while exploring Davidson Seamount off central California’s coast with researchers from NOAA's Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. The skeletal remains of this relatively recent fall are of a baleen whale estimated to be 4-5 meters long, and the team is working to identify the species. The site exhibits an interesting mid-stage of ecological succession, as both large scavengers like eel pouts and octopus are still stripping the skeleton of blubber, and bone-eating Osedax worms are starting to dissolve the bones. Explore with us LIVE right now: nautiluslive.org
Posted by Nautilus Live on Wednesday, October 16, 2019

10/10/201910/10/2019

Natural underwater slinky

We don’t use the phrase “Just when I thought I had seen it all” because stories like this one are being shared around the globe:

Divers just found a giant natural slinky on the Great Barrier Reef

This tube-like structure measures over 2.4 metres (8 feet) in length was identified byJames Cook University’s Dr Blake Spady as the egg tube of the Diamondback Squid. The squid, which itself is around 2 metres in length, can lay over 40,000 eggs in one ‘slinky’. Sadly, she dies afterwards.