WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:04.500 --> 00:00:05.480 - Hi everybody! 00:00:05.480 --> 00:00:08.940 This is Hannah McDonald here in Rogers City, Michigan. 00:00:09.080 --> 00:00:14.980 I work for the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation in support of the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries. 00:00:15.420 --> 00:00:19.140 Behind me here on this beautiful day, we have Lake Huron. 00:00:19.280 --> 00:00:21.680 This isn't just any section of Lake Huron though, 00:00:21.680 --> 00:00:24.820 this is the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary. 00:00:25.500 --> 00:00:31.820 Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary is one of a network of 14 marine protected areas managed by the 00:00:31.820 --> 00:00:37.940 National Marine Sanctuary system that encompasses 600,000 square kilometers 00:00:37.940 --> 00:00:40.160 of marine and Great Lakes waters. 00:00:40.400 --> 00:00:49.960 Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary protects 400, 4300 square miles of treacherous Great Lakes waters 00:00:50.140 --> 00:00:53.880 that encompasses over 200 shipwrecks. 00:00:54.120 --> 00:00:57.900 A hundred of which we've found, a hundred of which we are looking for, 00:00:58.260 --> 00:01:00.480 so that's kind of what brings us here today. 00:01:00.580 --> 00:01:05.420 And I'm gonna talk to you a little bit about that, as well as interview many of the 00:01:05.420 --> 00:01:10.920 expedition explorers on what we're doing here in Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary. 00:01:11.560 --> 00:01:18.060 So, NOAA has competitively awarded funds to do deep-sea exploration 00:01:18.060 --> 00:01:22.260 in National Marine Sanctuaries for the next three years. 00:01:22.720 --> 00:01:27.560 Ocean Exploration Trust is one of the awardees that is partnered with numerous 00:01:27.560 --> 00:01:33.300 sanctuary sites, including Thunder Bay, to discover new things in the deep. 00:01:33.600 --> 00:01:37.780 So we're here in Thunder Bay for a Great Lakes mapping expedition. 00:01:38.180 --> 00:01:44.900 And we have the expedition lead from Ocean Exploration Trust here with us today that's going to talk about that. 00:01:44.900 --> 00:01:51.060 We also have team from the University of New Hampshire's Center for Coastal and Ocean mapping 00:01:51.060 --> 00:01:55.920 that we'll get to speak with as well about some of their latest and greatest marine technology 00:01:55.920 --> 00:01:59.580 that's allowing us to see new areas of Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary 00:01:59.580 --> 00:02:01.840 that we haven't seen yet before. 00:02:02.440 --> 00:02:11.420 So we're gonna head over to Lindsay Gee, who's the expedition lead for Ocean Exploration Trust. 00:02:11.680 --> 00:02:12.300 Hi Lindsay! 00:02:12.300 --> 00:02:13.880 - Hi Hannah, how are you today? 00:02:13.920 --> 00:02:15.260 - I'm great it's good it's beautiful out. 00:02:15.260 --> 00:02:18.080 - It's a beautiful day I hear it's always like this in Michigan, right? 00:02:18.160 --> 00:02:19.220 - Especially in February. 00:02:19.220 --> 00:02:20.369 - Yeah, exactly. 00:02:20.369 --> 00:02:24.920 - Yeah so you were a part of this expedition from day one. 00:02:25.360 --> 00:02:32.540 Today was a beautiful day out on the boat, out with the ASV BEN, the autonomous surface vehicle. 00:02:32.840 --> 00:02:39.280 Could you tell us a little bit more about what brings Ocean Exploration Trust here to Rogers City, Michigan 00:02:39.360 --> 00:02:40.700 and what you did today. 00:02:40.700 --> 00:02:41.440 - Yeah, sure. 00:02:41.440 --> 00:02:43.940 So this is kind of a return for us. 00:02:43.940 --> 00:02:50.960 I guess our founder, Dr. Ballard, was up here in early 2000, 2001 before the Ocean Exploration Trust, actually, 00:02:51.320 --> 00:02:53.160 with the Institute for exploration. 00:02:53.160 --> 00:02:55.480 He had ROVs up here diving on the wrecks, 00:02:55.840 --> 00:02:58.960 and they were dived on a couple over near Alpena. 00:02:59.120 --> 00:03:06.220 And so now the Ocean Exploration Trust, we're, I think I heard you mentioned, that there was the 00:03:06.220 --> 00:03:09.620 award for a number of sanctuaries that we're doing exploration on, 00:03:09.620 --> 00:03:13.740 and our first one, first expedition of the year is actually up here in Thunder Bay. 00:03:13.740 --> 00:03:18.060 So, we're really saltwater people mostly, and we're in deep water most of the time. 00:03:18.400 --> 00:03:23.600 But with our exploration one of the things we do is we always try and map the area first, 00:03:23.600 --> 00:03:28.480 and then after that we'll then you know this, this exposes the seabed to what you can see, 00:03:28.480 --> 00:03:31.560 it's like you know, drain the ocean, kind of drain the lake kind of thing, you know. 00:03:31.560 --> 00:03:35.700 We get to see what's down there the shape of it the intensity, maybe what's on the bottom, 00:03:35.740 --> 00:03:42.480 and then it allows other researchers to go on and do their stuff and investigate what might be on the seabed, 00:03:42.480 --> 00:03:47.640 whether it's for wrecks, whether it's the habitat, you know there was a lot of sinkholes in the lake, 00:03:47.640 --> 00:03:50.320 so other researchers that are following that can do it. 00:03:50.500 --> 00:03:52.300 So, we've been mapping today, 00:03:52.500 --> 00:03:55.300 and it is a great day, unfortunately a little bit frustrating 00:03:55.300 --> 00:03:58.100 they had some troubles during the day with the boats and stuff 00:03:58.100 --> 00:03:59.580 but we're back a little bit early. 00:03:59.820 --> 00:04:06.060 But the mapping system, so Storm and the ASV both have a multi-beam sonar system, 00:04:06.340 --> 00:04:11.560 and so people that are used to been fishing or seen probably just a fathometer 00:04:11.560 --> 00:04:13.080 when they've been out there, seen a one line, 00:04:13.080 --> 00:04:15.800 these have both multi-beam, 00:04:15.800 --> 00:04:21.200 so they have a swath that goes out up to 70 degrees either side and they get 400 depths across. 00:04:21.600 --> 00:04:24.080 And they're doing that about three times a second, 00:04:24.080 --> 00:04:27.120 so you're building up a big picture of the seabed to see that. 00:04:27.120 --> 00:04:28.860 So that's what we're doing today 00:04:29.240 --> 00:04:33.740 we're out in the shipping lanes because of, you know, the wrecks are likely to have, 00:04:33.940 --> 00:04:36.540 you know ships have been back and forth there for years, 00:04:36.540 --> 00:04:40.940 and now we're trying to find some of those wrecks out there, primarily that's our main mission. 00:04:40.940 --> 00:04:44.140 - And now have the areas in the shipping lanes been mapped like this before? 00:04:44.140 --> 00:04:45.060 - No, they've never been mapped, 00:04:45.060 --> 00:04:50.280 and I think there's, less than 20 percent has been mapped in the whole of the sanctuary area. 00:04:50.560 --> 00:04:53.740 So when we're deciding where to go, there's many places, 00:04:53.740 --> 00:04:56.500 people are telling us, oh there might be shipwreck here, might be a shipwreck there, 00:04:56.500 --> 00:04:58.777 but what we're doing is we have chosen an area, 00:04:58.780 --> 00:05:04.060 and we're trying to just systematically just map across it and see what we see there. 00:05:04.500 --> 00:05:07.360 - That's great, so anything that you see is new and exciting? 00:05:07.360 --> 00:05:09.000 - Everything's new and exciting, right. 00:05:09.000 --> 00:05:12.640 We've never seen really the lake like this in this detail before in this area. 00:05:12.960 --> 00:05:13.620 - That's awesome. 00:05:14.040 --> 00:05:17.860 That's great, and besides maritime archaeologists that are interested in the shipwreck use, 00:05:18.180 --> 00:05:21.980 say a fisheries biologist is looking at this data, would they find it interesting? 00:05:22.040 --> 00:05:27.520 - Oh yeah, and so one of the things that another section of NOAA, the NCCOS crew, 00:05:27.520 --> 00:05:30.640 that do habitat mapping, so they're interested. 00:05:30.640 --> 00:05:33.504 They use the data and they can look at the types of habitat, 00:05:33.504 --> 00:05:38.160 how it changes from rocks to sort of the other sentiment on the seabed, 00:05:38.160 --> 00:05:44.000 and then they can analyze how that might provide habitat for fish and those things down there, 00:05:44.000 --> 00:05:45.360 and so that can help. 00:05:45.360 --> 00:05:49.780 You can't really manage what you don't, what you'd haven't mapped or imaged in some way. 00:05:49.840 --> 00:05:52.140 So certainly it goes to many people, 00:05:52.140 --> 00:05:56.440 and then in addition to that there's the charts of the area for the navigation. 00:05:56.620 --> 00:05:59.620 And so the Office of Coast Survey is another group of NOAA, 00:05:59.620 --> 00:06:05.520 and the data will also go to them so they can update the charts to help people that are navigating the ships, 00:06:05.520 --> 00:06:07.520 that are navigating on the lake as well. 00:06:07.740 --> 00:06:11.920 - So this research is useful to many different avenues and many different groups of people. 00:06:11.920 --> 00:06:14.520 - Many people and the data is part of the agreement with, 00:06:14.520 --> 00:06:17.860 you know, the government funded expeditions of mapping, 00:06:17.860 --> 00:06:23.720 all the data is eventually public so it gets published into a public archive, and we can, anybody could use it. 00:06:23.720 --> 00:06:28.620 So, any researcher whether they're at, you know, Northwest Michigan or anywhere around the country, 00:06:28.780 --> 00:06:31.200 can use that data as well to do for the research. 00:06:31.260 --> 00:06:32.860 - Yeah, that's fantastic. 00:06:33.140 --> 00:06:37.300 If you're just tuning in live on Facebook, we are here at the Rogers City Marina 00:06:37.300 --> 00:06:41.660 on the shores of Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary with Ocean Exploration Trust 00:06:41.660 --> 00:06:45.220 and the University of New Hampshire Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping. 00:06:45.420 --> 00:06:49.920 And we are discussing an ongoing expedition we have to map the Great Lakes. 00:06:49.920 --> 00:06:52.300 Now, you were on shore today, correct? 00:06:52.300 --> 00:06:53.080 - Yeah, that's right. 00:06:53.320 --> 00:07:01.420 - But behind us here we have the Great Lakes environmental research labs research vessel, the RV storm. 00:07:01.820 --> 00:07:06.700 And, I think we're gonna head on board, maybe talk to the ship's captain 00:07:06.700 --> 00:07:11.400 and other people that got to go out on the RV Storm supporting this mission today. 00:07:13.280 --> 00:07:13.780 Hello! 00:07:13.780 --> 00:07:14.340 - How are you doing? 00:07:14.340 --> 00:07:15.480 - Great, how are you? 00:07:15.480 --> 00:07:16.180 Awesome. 00:07:16.760 --> 00:07:19.360 - You can use that step up to if you need to. 00:07:21.520 --> 00:07:24.660 So this is my first time onboard RV storm, 00:07:24.660 --> 00:07:27.600 and you are Captain Travis, correct? 00:07:27.660 --> 00:07:28.160 - Correct. 00:07:28.400 --> 00:07:29.180 - Awesome! 00:07:29.280 --> 00:07:36.640 So, I would love to hear a little bit about your background with the ship, the vessel, 00:07:36.900 --> 00:07:40.620 and maybe we could get a little tour inside and see some of the 00:07:40.620 --> 00:07:44.240 instruments you use to navigate such a big research vessel on the Great Lakes. 00:07:44.320 --> 00:07:45.840 - Yeah, absolutely. 00:07:46.460 --> 00:07:49.220 I've been with these guys with NOAA for four years. 00:07:49.600 --> 00:07:54.920 And kind of the background before joining the NOAA group, 00:07:55.180 --> 00:08:00.860 I worked for a dredging company, Weeks Marine, and had done more survey work for them, 00:08:00.860 --> 00:08:06.540 and then prior to that was charter boats, so it was good to be back home on the Great Lakes. 00:08:07.320 --> 00:08:10.080 Yeah this boat's a great platform for us. 00:08:11.140 --> 00:08:13.280 We can come inside if you want. 00:08:13.280 --> 00:08:13.940 - Yeah. 00:08:15.540 --> 00:08:19.200 How many crew does it take to operate RV storm? 00:08:21.380 --> 00:08:24.880 - Three-person crew is probably the general operation. 00:08:25.280 --> 00:08:31.160 We can definitely on outreach days we'll have up to ten eleven people aboard, 00:08:31.380 --> 00:08:35.720 but there's extra safety equipment and gear we have to bring on to do so. 00:08:36.300 --> 00:08:42.120 But this boat, it has done a little bit of work in all the lakes but is primarily out of Alpena, 00:08:42.500 --> 00:08:46.280 supporting the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary. 00:08:47.200 --> 00:08:51.980 This here, kind of all the cool stuff to see is sort of down below. 00:08:52.000 --> 00:08:55.180 I don't know if it's gonna work with the camera down there. 00:08:55.220 --> 00:08:59.460 - Yeah, if you want to try to show Facebook live what we have down there. 00:08:59.800 --> 00:09:05.360 - So, that big pole sticking out of the hull of the boat is the moon pool. 00:09:05.840 --> 00:09:10.980 And this year we've gotten a new multi-beam unit from Kongsberg. 00:09:11.220 --> 00:09:17.860 And so that's, you can't see it, but inside that moon pool is what we're doing all the mapping with on this project. 00:09:18.980 --> 00:09:23.740 This boat's mainly used for survey work or dive operations. 00:09:23.940 --> 00:09:33.220 We have other vessels that are are made for putting our buoys in and some of other scientific work we do, so. 00:09:33.480 --> 00:09:37.780 - So is supporting special expeditions like this one with Ocean Exploration Trust 00:09:37.780 --> 00:09:40.220 something that happens on a yearly basis, 00:09:40.220 --> 00:09:45.420 or how is it like to work with a group that's Ocean Exploration Trust? 00:09:45.820 --> 00:09:47.460 - Yeah, it's been a great project. 00:09:49.280 --> 00:09:54.920 It's not every year, this is the first year I've worked with OET, 00:09:55.080 --> 00:10:00.780 but last year we had a big project with NCCOS, which is another branch of NOAA, 00:10:00.940 --> 00:10:02.540 and they're doing habitat maps. 00:10:02.920 --> 00:10:08.020 And so for them to have you know a vessel that's ready to go for survey, 00:10:08.020 --> 00:10:13.780 they can come here have a platform to do some of the things they want to do. 00:10:13.780 --> 00:10:22.040 And so, this project too, we have OET, NCCOS is going to use this mapping data to do habitat maps, 00:10:23.080 --> 00:10:25.960 and then Coast survey is involved as well, 00:10:26.020 --> 00:10:29.900 and they will update the charts, so the actual depths. 00:10:30.500 --> 00:10:31.060 - Great. 00:10:31.280 --> 00:10:34.743 So it's kind of, we try to get as many people involved. 00:10:34.743 --> 00:10:40.980 I mean, if we're looking for a ship, it's great if the data is usable to, you know, as many people as can be. 00:10:40.980 --> 00:10:45.200 - Yeah, and do you, as the captain, operate the sonar that's running from RV Storm, 00:10:45.200 --> 00:10:46.280 or do you have support for that. 00:10:46.280 --> 00:10:47.760 - Nope there's support for that. 00:10:47.760 --> 00:10:53.860 All these computers are what they use if there's a hydrographer, 00:10:54.200 --> 00:10:59.000 somebody else from the sanctuary or the survey. 00:10:59.360 --> 00:11:00.640 I drive the boat. 00:11:01.560 --> 00:11:06.380 We call it mowing the yard I just drive lines back and forth and make sure they have coverage. 00:11:06.620 --> 00:11:09.040 - And that's similar to what ASV Ben does as well, right? 00:11:09.040 --> 00:11:09.540 _ Yep. 00:11:09.620 --> 00:11:13.700 I heard the reference of mowing, so going back and forth over the area. 00:11:13.960 --> 00:11:14.600 Awesome! 00:11:14.800 --> 00:11:16.200 Well thank you Travis, 00:11:16.200 --> 00:11:19.400 and thank you to the Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab 00:11:19.400 --> 00:11:22.500 for having the RV storm available for this project. 00:11:22.940 --> 00:11:25.160 We really wouldn't be able to do it without them. 00:11:25.560 --> 00:11:26.860 - Yeah, excellent. 00:11:26.900 --> 00:11:30.820 Great thank you so much for your time Travis, and for your introduction to RV storm. 00:11:31.040 --> 00:11:35.780 So here we have Hunter, Hunter Brendel. 00:11:36.180 --> 00:11:38.860 And he was also on the RV storm today, correct? 00:11:38.860 --> 00:11:39.800 - That's correct, yes. 00:11:39.800 --> 00:11:41.940 Alright, how, it's been, it's beautiful right now. 00:11:41.940 --> 00:11:44.940 How is your day out on Storm today? 00:11:45.180 --> 00:11:48.200 - Well luckily the past few days have been really kind to us. 00:11:48.500 --> 00:11:51.740 It's actually looked like a like out there, whereas last week, 00:11:51.760 --> 00:11:54.160 the weather was a little bit more unforgiving, so. 00:11:54.760 --> 00:11:56.300 We had a couple of weather days, 00:11:56.300 --> 00:12:00.440 but it's kind of nice that this week we're sort of paying for it we've had great conditions 00:12:00.440 --> 00:12:02.740 and been able to get great data as a result. 00:12:02.780 --> 00:12:03.280 - Great. 00:12:03.300 --> 00:12:04.860 What is your role on RV storm? 00:12:05.280 --> 00:12:07.740 - So I am a NOAA Commission Officer. 00:12:08.540 --> 00:12:14.480 I'm a service member who is stationed at GLERL and Muskegon, Michigan. 00:12:14.600 --> 00:12:18.640 And my official billet title is Vessel Operations Coordinator. 00:12:18.920 --> 00:12:23.260 So it's basically my job to ensure that any kind of operations we do on the Great Lakes 00:12:23.260 --> 00:12:26.960 is conducted as securely and safely as possible. 00:12:27.340 --> 00:12:30.320 If they have any administrative issues,I can help out with that. 00:12:30.440 --> 00:12:34.800 And I can also fill in any sort of operational roles that are needed, 00:12:34.800 --> 00:12:40.480 so I can work on the deck, I can fill in as Captain for Captain Travis if need be. 00:12:40.700 --> 00:12:46.160 I can also bring over smaller support vessels and operate those as auxilary platforms, 00:12:46.540 --> 00:12:55.880 and I can also help with the survey technicians to conduct CTDs and instruments, instrumental tests and the like. 00:12:56.180 --> 00:12:59.600 - So you have a very versatile position sounds like you can do a whole lot of everything. 00:12:59.840 --> 00:13:07.360 - Exactly well I'm mostly trained to learn a lot very quickly and to adapt to whatever's needed of me. 00:13:07.600 --> 00:13:08.500 - That's awesome. 00:13:08.500 --> 00:13:13.400 Could you tell us a little bit more about NOAA Corps and what it is, how you got involved personally, 00:13:13.400 --> 00:13:20.000 and then I know you have a special connection to this project here with your previous educational background as well. 00:13:20.160 --> 00:13:25.440 - Right, so what not many people know is that NOAA Corps is actually the seventh uniformed service. 00:13:25.800 --> 00:13:28.580 It has 321 officers right now. 00:13:28.880 --> 00:13:33.800 And we're trained to be operational specialists to help support any kind of 00:13:33.800 --> 00:13:37.180 NOAA mission that's going on within all the line offices. 00:13:38.260 --> 00:13:41.580 Before I was a NOAA Corps officer, I was actually a maritime archaeologist, 00:13:41.580 --> 00:13:45.560 so being able to kind of go back on the lakes and look for shipwrecks again 00:13:45.560 --> 00:13:49.580 as well as map fish habitats is kind of special to me, 00:13:49.580 --> 00:13:52.960 and it's kind of cool that this has sort of come around full circle. 00:13:53.260 --> 00:13:58.600 And that kind of gives a testament to NOAA Corps and the type of recruits that they look for, 00:13:58.600 --> 00:14:03.800 so if you have a stem background and you're interested in doing operations while understanding 00:14:03.800 --> 00:14:07.640 what kind of science is going on, I'd highly recommend looking into NOAA Corps. 00:14:07.920 --> 00:14:08.620 - That's awesome. 00:14:08.860 --> 00:14:11.480 And are there any requirements to join the NOAA corps? 00:14:11.900 --> 00:14:16.960 - Yes, so you need to have at least a four year bachelor in a stem-related field. 00:14:17.340 --> 00:14:21.260 You also have to have a little bit of math, calculus and physics if I recall, 00:14:21.260 --> 00:14:25.320 so get studying and it definitely pays off in the long run. 00:14:25.460 --> 00:14:26.060 - That's awesome! 00:14:26.240 --> 00:14:29.940 And this is your land assignment, correct, but you're finding yourself on a boat. 00:14:30.180 --> 00:14:30.940 - That's right. 00:14:30.940 --> 00:14:35.820 So, prior to my assignment right now is VOC at GLERL. 00:14:35.980 --> 00:14:41.860 I served on a NOAA Ship and which I sailed underway for 400 days in two years. 00:14:42.140 --> 00:14:48.260 And what we did were fishery stock assessments from Mexico all the way to the Canadian border, 00:14:48.260 --> 00:14:54.240 so a lot of time underway a lot of different missions, including fish habitat mapping, 00:14:54.240 --> 00:14:58.360 fish census data, ROVs, AUVs, and buoy tending. 00:14:58.840 --> 00:14:59.771 - That's awesome. 00:14:59.780 --> 00:15:04.840 Thank you so much, Hunter, for the background of RV storm and your position with NOAA Corps. 00:15:05.740 --> 00:15:08.920 It's been great to learn a little bit more about NOAA Corps from you 00:15:08.920 --> 00:15:10.720 and be able to share that with Facebook live. 00:15:10.720 --> 00:15:11.480 -Alright, thank you. 00:15:11.480 --> 00:15:11.980 - Thank you. 00:15:12.620 --> 00:15:18.180 Alright, we are going to head to the autonomous service vehicle BEN next. 00:15:18.500 --> 00:15:22.580 You might have heard a few of us mention BEN throughout this live interaction. 00:15:22.780 --> 00:15:26.180 BEN stands for bathymetric explorer and navigator, 00:15:26.520 --> 00:15:34.140 and it's an autonomous surface vehicle, meaning that it's not operated by any human on the vessel itself, 00:15:34.140 --> 00:15:37.520 it's operated from a control van that's on shore. 00:15:37.760 --> 00:15:43.140 So we are going to head off of RV Storm and check out ASV BEN. 00:15:47.180 --> 00:15:49.180 Alright, I can help you down. 00:15:52.860 --> 00:15:53.440 There we go. 00:15:53.640 --> 00:16:00.840 Alright, so over here we're still at the Rogers City marina on the shores of Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary. 00:16:01.520 --> 00:16:09.800 This white van that we have here, or trailer, is the control van where they operate ASV BEN from. 00:16:10.460 --> 00:16:17.480 On Thursday of last week, we went live and we checked out the control van operations from a different location 00:16:17.480 --> 00:16:23.120 and went through the technology that is used to control ASV BEN as well. 00:16:23.540 --> 00:16:31.060 And so we're gonna check out ASV BEN itself since he's docked on in the water right now but in the marina. 00:16:31.260 --> 00:16:35.760 And we're gonna talk to Coral who's a PhD student in Ocean Engineering 00:16:35.760 --> 00:16:39.640 at the University of New Hampshire's Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping. 00:16:39.920 --> 00:16:41.580 So let's go talk to Coral. 00:16:44.620 --> 00:16:45.260 Hi Coral. 00:16:45.820 --> 00:16:47.080 - Hi, how are you? 00:16:47.240 --> 00:16:48.420 - Good, how are you? 00:16:48.420 --> 00:16:48.920 - I'm good. 00:16:48.920 --> 00:16:51.360 - How is your day of mapping? 00:16:51.680 --> 00:16:56.080 - Well it has been good most of the day until the very end, 00:16:56.980 --> 00:17:01.980 but now we hey we need to deal with some communication, radio communication issues that we have. 00:17:01.980 --> 00:17:04.560 So the guys are at the back working on it. 00:17:04.820 --> 00:17:05.600 [laughs] 00:17:05.600 --> 00:17:09.420 - That's great, so things can go wrong on a research expedition, 00:17:09.420 --> 00:17:13.240 but you have the team here that's equipped with the knowledge to fix it. 00:17:13.240 --> 00:17:13.740 - Yeah. 00:17:13.940 --> 00:17:14.620 - That's great. 00:17:14.700 --> 00:17:20.760 - Yeah, and if we need it then we have technical support from Kongsberg or any other company, 00:17:20.760 --> 00:17:24.740 or ASV global who is the manufacturer of the boat, of BEN. 00:17:25.200 --> 00:17:25.700 - Great! 00:17:26.200 --> 00:17:32.180 Before we take a closer look at BEN what is your particular role with this expedition and with BEN? 00:17:32.440 --> 00:17:33.240 - Okay. 00:17:33.460 --> 00:17:38.520 So with this expedition I'm actually doing two roles: 00:17:38.520 --> 00:17:45.760 One, I am providing support to the mapping team and the operation team with ASV BEN 00:17:45.760 --> 00:17:51.160 with every part that they need, whether it's grabbing it, launching it, 00:17:52.180 --> 00:17:56.200 supervising the mapping, the data acquisition for the mapping. 00:17:56.380 --> 00:18:03.820 And the second thing I'm gathering data for my research on sensor fusion 00:18:03.820 --> 00:18:08.400 for, for providing BEN autonomous situational awareness. 00:18:08.400 --> 00:18:13.100 So basically make BEN more aware of its environment by itself 00:18:13.100 --> 00:18:16.840 and reduce the amount of supervision that we need to support 00:18:16.840 --> 00:18:21.360 because right now we invest many resources into it. 00:18:21.900 --> 00:18:24.440 - So making it even more autonomous is your mission? 00:18:24.440 --> 00:18:25.360 - Even more autonomous, yeah. 00:18:25.500 --> 00:18:26.140 So that's my goal. 00:18:26.140 --> 00:18:30.160 I mean if you like consider the different levels of autonomy 00:18:30.160 --> 00:18:35.860 then first you need to be able to remote control it, that's like the very basic. 00:18:36.200 --> 00:18:40.760 Next it's like make, make it drive on it's own, which it does pretty right now. 00:18:41.320 --> 00:18:48.560 Right now we can tell it go to a waypoint, maintain heading and speed, follow a path, 00:18:48.560 --> 00:18:52.480 a survey plan or something, and it will do it. 00:18:53.800 --> 00:19:01.560 But if there is something that's on its way or about to cross its path, then tough luck 00:19:01.560 --> 00:19:05.620 because if we don't supervise it, and we don't see it, and maneuver around it, 00:19:05.620 --> 00:19:07.620 then it won't be able to do it on its own. 00:19:07.620 --> 00:19:14.000 So my part is make BEN aware of those things with the sensor that it has onboard. 00:19:14.240 --> 00:19:18.080 - So I heard that BEN did something really cool this last weekend. 00:19:18.300 --> 00:19:22.660 It was in the Thunder Bay River, and there's a walkway on the river, 00:19:22.860 --> 00:19:25.280 and there was somebody walking their dog, 00:19:25.460 --> 00:19:31.200 and on the screen in the control van it detected a dog and said dog. 00:19:31.420 --> 00:19:31.920 - Yeah. 00:19:31.920 --> 00:19:32.660 - Is that correct? 00:19:32.660 --> 00:19:33.160 - That's correct. 00:19:33.160 --> 00:19:33.820 - It's that smart? 00:19:34.440 --> 00:19:35.220 - Well, yeah. 00:19:35.220 --> 00:19:36.040 - That's incredible. 00:19:36.040 --> 00:19:38.380 - We've been working on making it even more smart. 00:19:39.080 --> 00:19:43.760 So it has what is called neural network deep learning algorithm 00:19:43.760 --> 00:19:48.620 for object detection from camera or video data stream, 00:19:49.580 --> 00:19:57.560 and it was trained to identify about 80 labels or classes, 80 different objects. 00:19:58.060 --> 00:20:04.000 So, when it identifies something that is look like them or they fall within those categories 00:20:04.000 --> 00:20:09.660 then it would detect it and say what is the probability or the level of certainty of it. 00:20:09.660 --> 00:20:15.360 So it would give you a percentage, say I'm like 90% sure that this was a dog. 00:20:15.800 --> 00:20:17.240 - Wow, that's really cool. 00:20:17.500 --> 00:20:19.260 Should we take a closer look at it? 00:20:19.260 --> 00:20:19.760 - Yeah. 00:20:19.760 --> 00:20:25.720 Part of Coral's team is working on fixing it now from the communication errors earlier in the day, 00:20:26.020 --> 00:20:29.120 but Coral would you mind giving a little bit of an explanation 00:20:30.380 --> 00:20:34.840 and getting up close and personal with BEN and the equipment that it's got on it. 00:20:35.080 --> 00:20:41.740 Yeah, so BEN is about four meter long and one and a half meter wide. 00:20:44.060 --> 00:20:51.540 In feet it's about 13 feet long and five feet wide. 00:20:53.020 --> 00:21:08.420 For navigation we have magnetic gyro compass and we have Garmin GPS that we use for the control of the boat. 00:21:08.900 --> 00:21:18.420 And for sensing and situational awareness, we have radar, we have infrared camera 00:21:18.680 --> 00:21:22.520 for thermal length, for seeing it when it's dark. 00:21:23.200 --> 00:21:27.160 We have one regular color camera and we also installed like, 00:21:27.160 --> 00:21:31.340 so those two cameras came with from the manufacturer, 00:21:31.340 --> 00:21:35.940 and we also have five different color cameras that we installed. 00:21:35.940 --> 00:21:40.000 So you can see like the two at the top it kind of sticks out, 00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:47.020 and there are two at the bottom and one on top of the radar that says Lowrence on it. 00:21:47.400 --> 00:21:58.120 We also have LIDAR, which we use for our situational awareness, like the autonomous, 00:21:58.120 --> 00:22:00.980 so that's on the development we're not really using it during operation, 00:22:00.980 --> 00:22:02.940 but we just got our data with it. 00:22:03.560 --> 00:22:06.240 We also have what is called AIS system, 00:22:06.240 --> 00:22:12.120 so that that stands for autonomous, sorry, automatic information system. 00:22:12.640 --> 00:22:19.580 That basically transmitter and receiver that sends BEN information, 00:22:19.960 --> 00:22:23.388 the name of it, the location, the speed, and the heading. 00:22:23.388 --> 00:22:27.780 And he also receives the location, speed, and heading and names of other vessels 00:22:27.780 --> 00:22:30.860 that has this that have the same system onboard. 00:22:32.660 --> 00:22:37.200 I think that's basically it, what we have for situational awareness. 00:22:38.760 --> 00:22:42.220 We have about four, we have four computers onboard, 00:22:42.220 --> 00:22:48.300 one that came with the manufacturer for driving, for driving BEN 00:22:48.620 --> 00:22:51.940 that controls the engine and everything that came with the boat. 00:22:52.000 --> 00:22:53.380 We also have another, 00:22:55.480 --> 00:23:02.140 we also have another computer for the backseat driver that we develop in our lab in our center. 00:23:03.600 --> 00:23:13.740 We have a Windows machine that for operating the the sonar itself and for the data acquisition, 00:23:15.500 --> 00:23:23.340 and we have one, another computer with GPU on it, graphic processing unit, on it 00:23:23.540 --> 00:23:26.200 that is called Nvidia Jetson TX2. 00:23:26.540 --> 00:23:31.340 And that's for the object detection algorithm that we talked about from the camera data screen. 00:23:31.760 --> 00:23:37.740 For the mapping, we have Kongsberg E.M. 2040P, 00:23:38.740 --> 00:23:42.720 and that right at the bottom of this ram here. 00:23:43.740 --> 00:23:47.600 We cannot see because it's underneath the boat, but yeah. 00:23:47.860 --> 00:23:52.660 It's like we have one of the antennas, the other GPS. 00:23:53.080 --> 00:24:01.780 So, in order to position the soundings that come out from the sonar, or that are detected by the sonar, 00:24:02.900 --> 00:24:13.960 we use [inaudible] that's a system that contains both RTK GPS and IMU, inertial measurement unit. 00:24:14.360 --> 00:24:22.260 And that provides like much more accurate positioning to the level of about an inch accuracy. 00:24:22.480 --> 00:24:23.300 - That's awesome. 00:24:23.300 --> 00:24:29.020 - Yeah, versus the regular Garmin GPS that has a level of accuracy of about one meter, so about three feet. 00:24:29.300 --> 00:24:30.180 - That's great. 00:24:30.180 --> 00:24:30.680 - Yeah. 00:24:30.680 --> 00:24:36.240 - So, ASV BEN is kind of the star of this expedition up in Thunder Bay, right? 00:24:36.280 --> 00:24:42.120 - Yeah, I mean so the the purpose of this expedition, I'm sure that you explained it before, 00:24:42.120 --> 00:24:48.740 is to map Thunder Bay, the shipping lanes, looking for shipwrecks, 00:24:48.740 --> 00:24:53.480 and support any kind of archaeology and conservation and so on. 00:24:53.480 --> 00:24:58.700 So, for that we need to map, and our tool to map is BEN. 00:24:58.960 --> 00:25:03.540 - Well, thank you so much coral for giving us the background information on ASV BEN 00:25:03.540 --> 00:25:04.860 and sharing your knowledge with us. 00:25:05.320 --> 00:25:11.340 We are going to get back with Lindsay, the expedition lead from Ocean Exploration Trust, 00:25:11.560 --> 00:25:15.260 to see what the next steps are for this expedition. 00:25:15.560 --> 00:25:18.760 We've only got a few days left but lots to do, right? 00:25:18.800 --> 00:25:22.380 - Yeah lots to do, and hopefully the weather holds out and we can get out there and just keep mapping. 00:25:22.380 --> 00:25:23.500 Now everything's kind of up and running it. 00:25:23.500 --> 00:25:27.900 It always takes a little time in an expedition or a project to get up and running with the boats. 00:25:27.900 --> 00:25:32.380 They're now kind of, apart from issues, we've just got a few issues with communications and control, 00:25:32.380 --> 00:25:37.580 but now we just gotta map right through till Saturday afternoon and then we'll be off to another expedition. 00:25:37.580 --> 00:25:43.380 So, but then yeah, processing the data takes a while and then we'll get the products out and we'll get it all to people. 00:25:43.380 --> 00:25:49.720 - And for future expeditions ASV BEN will be visiting another National Marine Sanctuary, correct? 00:25:49.720 --> 00:25:50.540 - Yeah, later on. 00:25:50.540 --> 00:25:56.820 So Nautilus is off the west coast now they did a shakedown, Dr. Ballard was out last weekend. 00:25:56.820 --> 00:26:02.480 We're now off to, actually we're off after this, I think tomorrow they're heading into 00:26:02.480 --> 00:26:04.960 Cordell Bank and Greater Farallones to do some mapping. 00:26:04.960 --> 00:26:06.220 - Which are both National Marine Sanctuaries. 00:26:06.220 --> 00:26:07.240 - National Marine Sanctuaries. 00:26:07.240 --> 00:26:07.740 - Awesome. 00:26:07.760 --> 00:26:11.860 And then, we head out to the Pacific to Hawai'i and then down to Samoa, 00:26:11.860 --> 00:26:14.880 where we'll be at National Marine Sanctuary of Samoa. 00:26:15.280 --> 00:26:16.500 I think that's July. 00:26:16.500 --> 00:26:17.400 - Yeah, the end of July. 00:26:17.400 --> 00:26:18.000 - Before we come back. 00:26:18.000 --> 00:26:21.100 And then at the end of the year, we come back to more marine sanctuaries 00:26:21.100 --> 00:26:27.820 when we're going to drive on Greater Farallones, Cordell Bank, and Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. 00:26:27.940 --> 00:26:30.520 And all of those, if people want to follow along, 00:26:31.340 --> 00:26:34.860 Nautilus always when we're diving or when we're, when were actually now 00:26:34.860 --> 00:26:39.840 the expedition season started, if you go to Nautiluslive.org you can follow along with us, 00:26:39.840 --> 00:26:44.840 and you can see when we're diving, you can see the ROV video, you can see its mapping, 00:26:44.840 --> 00:26:47.100 and you can even get online and ask us questions. 00:26:47.300 --> 00:26:48.860 - All the time? 24 hours? 00:26:48.860 --> 00:26:50.380 - All the time, 24 hours when we're out there. 00:26:50.380 --> 00:26:52.380 Yeah, we're on watch and someone will be there. 00:26:52.380 --> 00:26:53.160 - That's incredible! 00:26:53.180 --> 00:26:53.700 - Yeah. 00:26:53.700 --> 00:26:59.360 - So that's Nautiluslive.org to tune in to future Ocean Exploration Trust expeditions. 00:26:59.360 --> 00:27:03.580 You'll be visiting other places outside of National Marine Sanctuaries as well, 00:27:03.580 --> 00:27:07.620 so be sure to check out their page this 2019 expedition season. 00:27:07.620 --> 00:27:08.120 - Yeah. 00:27:08.120 --> 00:27:11.620 So yeah, we're looking forward to hopefully coming back here next year, right? 00:27:11.620 --> 00:27:12.120 - Yeah, that'd be great. 00:27:12.120 --> 00:27:14.760 - I think the team here are looking forward, they've enjoyed it here, 00:27:14.760 --> 00:27:18.860 and I think national marine, we're keen to coming back and working with you guys up here. 00:27:18.860 --> 00:27:19.360 - Great. 00:27:19.540 --> 00:27:25.080 We had one question coming from Facebook live about how to get involved with this opportunity 00:27:25.420 --> 00:27:29.600 as a interest in fisheries biology, any thoughts? 00:27:29.860 --> 00:27:33.920 - Yeah, so I mean I think this expedition is mostly kind of mapping folks, 00:27:33.920 --> 00:27:39.200 but normally they can have access to the data if they want to do anything with it . 00:27:39.480 --> 00:27:42.680 On this crew, you know, on this expedition we don't have any kind of biologists, 00:27:42.680 --> 00:27:47.480 but quite often in our other cruisers we will have, you know, biologists and ecologists on board. 00:27:47.480 --> 00:27:49.780 So, but you can tune in. 00:27:49.780 --> 00:27:50.300 - Yeah. 00:27:50.300 --> 00:27:52.200 - And so you could be seeing, not not for this expedition, 00:27:52.200 --> 00:27:55.580 but once we're diving, you can tune in and see what they're doing, 00:27:55.580 --> 00:28:00.940 and you'll hear quite often on a number of the cruises there'll be the biologist and ecologist on board 00:28:00.940 --> 00:28:03.160 talking about more than just mapping. 00:28:03.160 --> 00:28:08.440 And we'll be connecting with your team and the University of New Hampshire one more time here in Thunder Bay. 00:28:08.660 --> 00:28:14.600 And that's going to be this Thursday at 11:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, 00:28:14.600 --> 00:28:18.820 and we'll be going over, this is kind of a wrap up of the expedition by Thursday. 00:28:18.820 --> 00:28:23.940 We'll see, we'll touch base again see how it's been going out with ASV BEN. 00:28:23.940 --> 00:28:28.660 - And we can probably, you know we'll have a good amount of the data processed by then, at least in preliminary mode, 00:28:28.660 --> 00:28:31.600 and we can bring it down into the van and maybe show you some of that. 00:28:31.600 --> 00:28:32.100 - That'd be great to share. 00:28:32.100 --> 00:28:32.600 -That'd be cool. 00:28:32.600 --> 00:28:35.560 - Yeah, the processed data and see what the bottom of Lake Huron 00:28:35.560 --> 00:28:36.360 - Really looks like. 00:28:36.360 --> 00:28:36.880 - Actually looks like. 00:28:37.080 --> 00:28:37.580 Yeah. 00:28:37.780 --> 00:28:41.160 - [moderator] We had one more question from our Facebook live viewers. 00:28:41.160 --> 00:28:44.480 Daniel said he can hardly wait to see the shipwrecks, 00:28:44.480 --> 00:28:50.240 and he's wondering when can we expect to see them, and if so, will any of it be shown live. 00:28:50.860 --> 00:28:52.360 - Probably won't be shown live. 00:28:52.360 --> 00:28:55.460 We've actually been, we haven't found any in the new areas just yet. 00:28:55.460 --> 00:28:58.100 We've been over a couple of the ones that were known, 00:28:58.600 --> 00:29:00.760 so maybe with those ones we'll check with Steph 00:29:00.760 --> 00:29:03.520 maybe we can show some of that some of that data when we, the wreck. 00:29:03.520 --> 00:29:05.000 So, that'll be on Thursday, right? 00:29:05.000 --> 00:29:09.020 - Right, Thursday will be the day we can go over some of the processed data. 00:29:09.180 --> 00:29:10.100 - Yeah hopefully Steph's here, 00:29:10.100 --> 00:29:16.120 and then I think it's after that once the data's all been done and you guys have maybe had dives on it and stuff 00:29:16.120 --> 00:29:21.800 then I'm sure the marine sanctuary is going to be the place to come to to see all the data and the shipwrecks. 00:29:21.800 --> 00:29:24.680 - Eventually we share the locations to the shipwrecks 00:29:24.680 --> 00:29:28.460 so that you can come into the sanctuary and experience them for yourself, 00:29:28.460 --> 00:29:32.580 whether that be through the Alpena Shipwreck Tours glass-bottom boat, 00:29:32.740 --> 00:29:39.840 whether it's through snorkeling, free diving, scuba diving, all different ways to access these resources. 00:29:41.020 --> 00:29:43.980 Alright, well thank you Lindsay for your time. 00:29:43.980 --> 00:29:46.000 - Thank you, it was great to be here in the sunshine of Michigan. 00:29:46.000 --> 00:29:48.640 - I know this lovely day in Northern Michigan. 00:29:48.640 --> 00:29:49.200 - Yeah. 00:29:49.720 --> 00:29:52.060 - [moderator] We one more question before we wrap up. 00:29:52.060 --> 00:29:52.700 - One more. 00:29:52.860 --> 00:29:54.040 - Nathan asks, 00:29:54.040 --> 00:30:00.080 what opportunities do you have for technical and or engineering persons with the expedition? 00:30:00.460 --> 00:30:03.180 - I think this is a great time to talk about the Nautilus internships. 00:30:03.180 --> 00:30:03.680 - Internships. 00:30:03.680 --> 00:30:08.120 Yeah, one of the things that I think that Nautilus, apart from doing the ocean exploration, 00:30:08.120 --> 00:30:10.700 the kind of other, there's other two aspects of it. 00:30:10.700 --> 00:30:14.060 One we're doing now, it's like making sure that people are aware of what we're doing, 00:30:14.060 --> 00:30:15.583 but we also have internships, 00:30:15.583 --> 00:30:22.200 and they're normally senior undergraduates and junior and graduates, right through the PhD, like Coral. 00:30:22.200 --> 00:30:23.680 She's been out on Nautilus. 00:30:23.680 --> 00:30:25.360 And people can apply. 00:30:25.520 --> 00:30:28.060 The positions are filled for this year, 00:30:28.060 --> 00:30:30.960 but normally I think around January, February it's advertised, 00:30:30.960 --> 00:30:35.500 and anybody that's interested can apply to be an intern on Nautilus. 00:30:35.500 --> 00:30:39.480 And what we have is mapping and science interns, we have video interns, 00:30:41.020 --> 00:30:47.500 we have ROV engineering interns, and we also have then science communication fellows, 00:30:47.500 --> 00:30:50.800 which is another area I think that, it's really not an internship, 00:30:50.800 --> 00:30:56.860 but these are teachers and others that really kind of communicate the science of what we're doing 00:30:56.860 --> 00:30:59.246 technically out to people, the public. 00:30:59.246 --> 00:31:04.300 And one of those is right here in Alpena, was David Cummins who was out a couple of years ago, 00:31:05.200 --> 00:31:05.840 - He's the 00:31:05.840 --> 00:31:07.160 - Always does it. 00:31:07.160 --> 00:31:13.940 - Right, he's the marine technology and drone program coordinator for the Alpena Community College, 00:31:14.060 --> 00:31:19.220 and he was from Alpena got to sail aboard the Nautilus, I believe in 2016. 00:31:19.220 --> 00:31:21.380 - 2016 in the Channel Islands I think. 00:31:21.380 --> 00:31:22.720 - In another National Marine Sanctuary. 00:31:22.720 --> 00:31:23.780 - Another National Marine Sanctuary, yeah. 00:31:23.780 --> 00:31:24.840 So he came out to that, 00:31:24.840 --> 00:31:29.580 and I think it was great to see him again out here with the MATE ROV programs. 00:31:29.580 --> 00:31:32.200 And he had his drones out here the other day too and some imagery for us, 00:31:32.200 --> 00:31:36.338 so it's kind of a small world of ocean exploration, it's great to connect with everybody. 00:31:36.338 --> 00:31:41.669 - And it's a small world, but an easy way to get involved through all the opportunities that you mentioned. 00:31:41.669 --> 00:31:42.169 - Yeah. 00:31:42.480 --> 00:31:43.220 - Yeah. 00:31:43.260 --> 00:31:46.080 So thank you so much for tuning in, Facebook live viewers. 00:31:46.340 --> 00:31:51.300 We will be signing off from Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary with Ocean Exploration Trust, 00:31:51.300 --> 00:31:55.060 the University of New Hampshire's Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping, 00:31:55.060 --> 00:31:57.100 and Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary. 00:31:57.520 --> 00:31:59.260 Alright, thank you! 00:31:59.260 --> 00:32:01.660 - Okay thanks, bye!