-: Aloha Kākou, Aloha, everyone and welcome
to our third Thursday presentation.
Today, we have a wonderful talk for you today
on extending our ocean reality,
bringing ancestral and contemporary ocean voyaging
and exploration to life with extended reality technologies.
So really exciting and we're also coming to you live
from the Hōkūleʻa, the Polynesian voyaging canoe,
which is currently on the West Coast between Canada
and near the San Juan Island, Washington and Canada,
and just completed their trip from Alaska.
We'll be continuing around the Pacific
and you're gonna hear more about that later.
But just quickly, a couple of housekeeping things.
If you are having problems with your audio,
please make sure to check in the audio panel
of the GoTo Webinar control panel.
There, you'll see the settings for your speakers
and your microphone, so please make sure to check that
if you are having problems hearing things.
And if you still have problems,
please type it into the question box or the chat box,
and Justin or I will we'll try to get you on
if you are still having problems presenting.
But at this time, I am going turn it over to Malia Evans
for opening protocol to properly open this space
for our minds and hearts and environment.
Over to you, Malia.
-: Mahalo nui, Andy.
As we begin protocol,
we just wanna send our aloha nui
out to our Maui community and lift them up.
Lift up all the people in the communities there.
Also, as we set this space through protocol
for the giving and the receiving of information
and knowledge and we just also lift up
Papahānaumokuākea as a sacred Hawaiian space that it is.
So I'm gonna turn off my camera
and begin our oli - Mele no Papahānaumokuākea.
(Malia chanting in Hawaiian)
-: Mahalo, Malia and Mahalo for sending out
your thoughts to the folks on Maui who are suffering
and it's really hard to conceive.
I know our Humpback Whale,
National Marine Sanctuary site in Kihei
is offering a lot of support to some of the families there
who are suffering and that we send out our thoughts
and prayers to them in this really difficult time.
So our National webinar, this webinar
is hosted to our National Marine Sanctuary system,
and we are a system of 15 National Marine Sanctuaries
across the United States and out into the Pacific,
including five proposed National Marine Sanctuaries.
We have five separate National Marine Sanctuary
designations going on right now,
including two out here in the Pacific
Papahānaumokuākea National Marine Sanctuary
is being proposed and a Pacific Remote Islands
National Marine Sanctuary
is also in the process of being proposed.
But we represent sites, really diverse sites
across the United States including some of the unique ones
such as the Monitor for the Civil War shipwreck
on the East Coast, the Florida Keys,
Flower Garden Banks, numerous ones on the West Coast,
including where Hōkūleʻa is just about to enter now,
a big coast up in the Northwest of the United States,
and out here into the Pacific are Hawaiian Islands,
Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary
and our American Samoa National Marine Sanctuary
of American Samoa far to the south.
So it's a very diverse system,
and if you'd like to get involved
in either of the designations out here in the Pacific,
those are the websites,
but just type in National Marine Sanctuary
designation for Papānaumokuākea,
our proposed designation for the Pacific Remote Islands.
And we'd love to have you get involved in this process
because we're gonna be holding more meetings
on both of these proposals,
and would love the public to be involved
as much as is possible.
Currently, we are a marine national monument though.
Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument
in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands,
we're the world's largest fully protected area,
580,578 square miles of ocean area,
and if you were to lay it across the United States,
it would cover an area from about,
well, the entire Hawaiian Archipelago
from about New Orleans to Las Vegas.
So it's pretty vast area in the Pacific,
all of our national parks could fit within this area.
So our hosts today are Malia, who you heard before,
Oʻahu education coordinator, myself, Andy Collins
and Justin Umholtz is doing technical support
in the background and he's both of us work over here
at our Mokupāpapa Discovery Center in Hilo.
So if you get to Hilo, we'd love to have you come.
We're open Tuesday through Saturday, nine to four.
We're a free facility that highlights
the nature and cultural importance of Papahānaumokuākea,
we have many beautiful exhibits in a lot the Hawaiʻi,
Hawaiian language and English,
and a number of interactive exhibits,
videos, and other things.
So we'd love to see you here at the Visitor Center
for Papahānaumokuākea in Hilo.
But the sites across the system,
we protect these sites for their unique biodiversity
for the shelter they provide,
for the plants and animals living within them.
The incredible cultural heritage
such as this is a picture from Mokumanamana,
which is the second island
in the Northwestern Hawaiian Island,
and shows some unique heiau or sacred sites on this island.
Also the Maritime Heritage,
the more recent Western kind of heritage of the region.
Many shipwreck sites, whaling vessels
that have gone down within Papahānaumokuākea.
We also conduct a lot of research in these areas
to understand how they're doing and then monitor them
to see from impacts such as climate change,
human impacts from shore and things like that
to see how we're doing in regards
to the management of these areas.
In some cases, we're actually trying to restore
some of these areas.
There's a huge project called Mission Iconic Reef
in the Florida Keys,
that is out planting a lot of corals
to try to restore some of the precious reefs
down there off the Southern Florida coast.
We also do a lot of education like this webinar
and our Mokupāpapa Discovery Center.
And we also do a lot of outreach in the community
because we're very community-focused organization.
We try to get as many people involved
in sanctuaries as we possibly can.
And one way that you could do that is through volunteering
at a sanctuary if you are near a National Marine sanctuary,
please consider volunteering to help,
these folks are helping to clean up a beach
and the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary.
And of course they're just very special places,
challenging times we've had recently,
it's a place where we can kind of reset ourselves
and restore our connections to nature.
That's always been there and sometimes,
we just forget that it's there.
So I'm gonna ask our presenters to turn on their webinar,
but we have a few presenters today,
we have three actually.
The first is Daniel Kinzer, who has a MS,
Master's in Science in Biomimicry
from Arizona State University.
He's the lead community technology
at Purple Mai'a Foundation.
He's also the lead science communication fellow
with Ocean Exploration Trust,
and he's a crew member with a Polynesian Voyaging Society
in the Voyaging Canoe Hōkūleʻa.
We also have Dr. Brittany Kamai, PhD in physics
from Vanderbilt University.
She's a director of integrity and innovation
for next generation gravitational wave experiment.
She's a cosmic explorer and crew member
also with Polynesian Voyaging Society.
And we also have Megan Cook,
who's the director of Education outreach
with Ocean Exploration Trust
and the exploration vessel, Nautilus
who you're going to hear more about
in the coming presentation.
So I'm gonna turn the presenter over to you, Daniel,
and turn off my webcam.
And you should have control to show your PowerPoint.
-: All right, Aloha kākou.
Everything sound good, look good?
Andy: Looks good, sounds good.
Mahalo nui Andy, Aloha kākou
Mahalo to Brittany and to Megan and to Malia
for that beautiful opening.
I'm Daniel Kinzer, as introduced,
the lead community technologist
with Purple Mai'a Foundation.
I'm based in Honolulu and privileged to get to join
with Nautilus and Ocean Exploration Trust
as a science communication fellow
going to Papahānaumokuākea next month in September,
along with Megan, and currently with Brittany
with Hōkūleʻa in Ganges harbour Salt Spring Island.
I can turn my camera for those of you who can see me,
and if you look out into the harbor
and you got a very keen eye,
you might be able to spot a Hawaiian flag and the two masts,
very familiar mass of Hōkūleʻa
on the far side of that harbor.
So we're in port today with a good WiFi connection.
Looking forward to this conversation.
Over to you, Brittany.
-: Hello, (speaking in foreign language).
I'm Brittany Kamai.
I grew up in Pauoa Valley and now live in Waianae on Oʻahu,
one of our Hawaiian islands.
I'm super stoked to be here, yes, (indistinct)
and we wanted to join you from the canoe,
but we wanna make sure it was not gonna be
pretty spotty WiFi, so we're lucky for the Harbor Hotel
to host us here.
So I'll pass it over to Megan.
-: Hello, Aloha, (speaking in foreign language), everyone.
I'm Megan Cook, I'm the director
of education and outreach as introduced.
A joy where I get to work with a wonderful team
to think about the deep ocean,
visit that place, learn from it,
and share it with the world.
I'm connected just about 25 miles away from Daniel
and Brittany today in where I am based
in Friday Harbor, Washington.
Although I grew up
in the Great oceanography state of Idaho.
So hello to all of you who are not sitting
along the coastline today,
and thanks for joining us for this conversation
to think about and speak about the ocean.
I have the gift to talk about this really special place
that we are all near right now, which is the Salish Sea.
This is a rich and beautiful water place
and land-based place.
This is an emerald ocean all summer
and a crystal blue ocean all winter.
Some people might know this as a boundary ocean.
We're near the today border of Canada and the United States,
but this is a place of deep connection and what we call
the Salish Sea, these waters that move through this place
have moved across these boundaries we have
and linked people as a source of inspiration,
as a source of connection,
as a source of sharing since time immemorial.
So we wanna honor and acknowledge the swirling
and intense currents of this place.
This is a very active ocean place on the border
of Moananuiākea had the gift habit described as fingers
that reach into the land in this place.
And so connected to an ocean,
an ocean inside the land, an ocean out across the world.
So we honor the coast and straight Salish people
who have stewarded this place and taught us all
and had the gifts to teach us all
what they've learned from this place.
So as Daniel and Brittany are in a place called
Salt Spring Island, it is in what we call Canada now.
I'm in San Juan Island in a place we call America,
but all a part of this ocean place.
And so, we're grateful to everyone who continues to teach us
and inspire us and care for these places.
As Andy said, we invite you all.
This is a wonderful place to come and learn about the ocean.
So if you have the opportunity,
I hope you can seek out these communities who all have
such a rich connection and history here and take
the opportunity to learn from them.
-: Mahalo, Megan.
Yeah, I think that each and every one of us
are occupying some small place on this planet.
So acknowledging the ancestral lands that we're on
is incredibly valuable.
And so we're in this webinar today,
a title is Extending our Ocean Reality,
and I wanted to ground us with the ocean.
So weirdly, we're looking at a white screen now,
but maybe that's because we all need our imagination.
So basically, the image that I would like you to conjure up
in your mind is a zoom out view, there we go,
of our planets.
And on this picture,
the Hawaiian islands are towards the top of it.
And many people who come with a land-based lens would use
the language that Hawaii's very disconnected.
We're isolated, we're far away.
And that's really in stark contrast with who we are
as an indigenous people of the Pacific.
Where when we look at this, this is our watery continent,
that we travel back and forth all around these places
on our sea roads.
And this place is a deep, deep connection,
not only to the people who are practicing
moving across the ocean
and our cultural practice of voyaging,
but our ancestors are in po.
And so po is a Hawaiian word for the ancestor realm.
It's an incredibly deep, rich word
that shows up in a lot of our stories,
not only in Hawaii, but with our family in the Pacific.
But the ocean is an incredibly sacred space.
You can go back to that slide.
So one thing I want to talk about though
is that if you looked at the story and were like,
"Oh, how did the Hawaiians get there?"
You and you didn't have a connection
with the intelligence of the Pacific,
you could make up a story that we didn't get there
on purpose, that it was an accident.
And so, there was a time when we didn't have our practices
of traveling across the ocean,
and so that story could run away with itself.
And so yeah, you can go into the next slide.
So luckily, in 2023, we can look at this picture and say,
"Wow, that is a beautiful ocean vessel."
In the Pacific, we call them canoes.
And we've watched the Disney movie "Moana,"
so we know that we're voyagers.
But in the '70s, that story was broken
and we had no way to tell how Hawaiians got to Hawaii.
Even though it was in our stories,
in our dances, in our plants and everything,
there was not our central object, which is this vessel.
So Hōkūleʻa was actually initially built as an experiment
in an academic conversation about how did the Hawaiians
get to Hawaii.
But really, she also awoke
what our ancestral indigenous practice
of who we are as a people to be out on this vessel
and doing exactly what my ancestors
and our ancestors have done.
And my academic background is in experimental astrophysics
where we build lasers and we shoot them around
to try to measure ripples and space and time
in the universe.
And somehow we will use the words technology
to talk about that where it's metal and lasers and mirrors.
Yet you don't realize that a vessel like this
is the cutting edge technology that existed
and still exists at the time.
So Hōkūleʻa is not only this huge cultural beacon
that has awakened so many people around the Pacific
to engage in our practice to be our best self.
It is technology,
It is seeing like how are people built these things,
understood hydrodynamics enough
and built to build this instrument.
And then also, the whole knowledge system to go
across the watery world without an extension like
like a piece of metal aligning to the magnetic fields
of the earth.
Rather, really, this tuning our entire selves
to be this instrument that was able to receive everything
not only from the physical realm,
from like the wind and the waves and the stars,
but also our spiritual realm.
So the communication with our (speaking in foreign language)
our gods, and our ancestors as we move through.
So this is where I want us to start,
us thinking about our watery world and what does technology
look like in the seventies and where we've come to.
And then connecting with the things
that then has been leading and thinking about today.
-: Oh, mahalo, Brittany and Megan.
What a gift to be here today
on a vessel that's been stewarded by our teachers,
by the ancestors.
Hōkūleʻa is a gift from the ancestors from the ocean itself.
And that deep ocean connection that Brittany's alluding to
that took peoples of the Pacific all across
this watery world is really what this project
that we're gonna talk about was all about.
Was how could we leverage some of the cutting edge
technologies of today of 2023,
especially these extended reality
or virtual reality technologies.
How could we utilize those,
or in what ways was it appropriate to utilize those
to help us pursue that deep ocean connection
and give us an opportunity to share what it's like
to gather on the vessel, to gather on Hōkūleʻa,
to gather on board the Nautilus.
And so I had the privilege of being on board the Nautilus
towards the end of last year and have also put quite a bit
of energy and love into preparing Hōkūleʻa
and being with Hōkūleʻa and her crew,
her other caretakers.
Over the course of the last few years
in preparation for Moananuiakea.
And for me, this relationship that's possible with the ocean
extends so much more, it's so much deeper
than what the data can tell us.
What the scientific,
what's conceived of is scientific data can tell us.
And so I share these images from onboard,
both the Nautilus and Hōkūleʻa.
This picture was taken just a couple of days ago on the top
with Brittany talking with our captain, Bruce Blankenfeld,
who's just a masterful teacher and storyteller and navigator
and captain and our other crew members, Shoko and Jonah.
And then down below on the Nautilus last September with Josh
who leads ROV operations with the Nautilus and Abel.
It's incredibly incredible engineer electronics master
from Malaysia and Singapore.
And that time spent together in relationship as a crew,
as a community with the ocean, on the ocean, in the ocean,
traveling far across the surface or going deep
into the ocean is something that's really special.
And so I began to wonder how we could leverage
some of these new technologies
not to recreate but to help invite people into that space.
And then of course, not only that,
we have this incredible need to understand what's happening
in the Pacific and around our planet as we address things
associated with climate change,
all the challenges that are gonna come with that.
And we can see the storms tracking across the Pacific.
We know that the fires in Maui that we're still trying
to process and deal with and will be for a long time,
but that those were fueled by winds
that were exacerbated by the hurricane to the south.
And so, it's all of this complexity,
all of this is part of this relationship that we have
with the ocean and that we have together as humans
and are more than human family.
And so this is what we're pursuing.
So I don't want to get too much caught up
in the technology part.
We will talk a little bit about what is extended reality
and what did we do with some young Hawaiians
that has me excited is early experiment.
But yeah, I'm really hoping that where we can go
is deeper into our relationship with each other
and with the ocean and creating more opportunities
to gather on the far.
Anything you wanted to add to that?
-: Yeah, I wanna take a second to reflect on.
So Bruce Blankenfeld is one of our master navigators
that we have.
We're so lucky to have him.
He's taken on a hard job of trying to figure out
how do we do our ancestral practices
and navigating that instruments.
And what he's been able to do is to learn
from master navigators around the Pacific,
who they're so incredibly tuned into what the ocean
is telling us, what the weather is telling us,
that they were able to talk about these changes,
these changes that our earth is going through
before or alongside the evidence that scientists
have come up with with the models that we can create.
And so I asked Dan to put this picture on there
because this is literally from a few days ago where we have
these huge hurricanes that are coming through the Pacific
and our ocean is yelling at us.
Like she was slowly whispering to us
like, "Hi, pay attention.
Y'all need to change what you're doing."
And now it's at a point where it's like we cannot ignore.
And how many other people have said it,
and I'll add to that,
that that call is that like our ocean is a critical piece
of everything that happens on this planet.
So the work of connecting people to the ocean,
there's so many dimensions to it,
it's like the connection you have with one another,
but like the person of who the ocean is
and how that's gonna help change what we need to do
to care for our planet.
So I just wanted to like add that
into what we're thinking about
and what we're talking about these days.
-: Yeah, mahalo.
I think it's so critical that we start to or continue look
for ways to deepen in our storytelling,
in our communications, all of the incredible science
that is being done and also all the incredible
cultural knowledge and deep knowledge
that's held within the indigenous communities
of the Pacific.
And I think as we start talking a little bit
about the technology associated with what we did,
that's really what we're looking for in this experiment,
in this project is does this new technology provide us
with a way to more meaningfully communicate
around all of these complex issues and share our science,
share our culture together in ways
that are really gonna help people take action
and start moving towards a different
and deeper relationship with the ocean?
Just a couple of quick videos highlighting
some of what Ocean Exploration Trust
and the Polynesian Voyaging Society,
Nautilus and Hōkūleʻa bring to life.
-: I think, so the video on the left is Hōkūleʻa in action,
so it's coolest the steering blade, so there's no tiller
or steering wheel in the water.
So this is our autopilot,
so the steering blade's up
and this is, Hōkūleʻa just like shining.
And so she's moving with everything.
Like she's tuned perfectly into the ocean
and it's so interesting
that we're right next side by side with her,
it's like underneath the ocean.
What we're able to see below the surface.
So those are the two videos you're looking at.
-: Yeah, thank you, Brittany.
So that's exactly right.
So just thinking about,
I show these mainly 'cause how do we help people
connect to this?
The video are powerful tools,
some of the most powerful technology
that we have or that we're familiar with.
But our mission is how can we go deeper?
How can we go further with the canoe?
How can we go deeper into the ocean into understanding
these realms and connecting with them
and realizing how much a part of them we are?
That's where this project started.
So the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation,
thank you for helping to fund this really exciting project
that we called Future Navigators,
where we were supporting young Hawaiians in learning
about XR or extended reality technologies,
ways to create extended reality content.
Some people refer to it as metaverse,
you'll hear a lot of different terminology for it.
I don't wanna get too much into the technology,
but we were able to start creating
these 3D immersive worlds,
these non-linear social worlds
that were dynamic and persistent.
Spaces where young Hawaiians could come and hang out
and share their stories and explore stories of Kanaloa.
Alongside stories of science, modern contemporary science.
So we have this mixing of indigenous and Hawaiian science
with modern contemporary science coming together
in this realm of Kanaloa.
And Kanaloa is the Hawaiian Akua or God of the ocean,
is very complex character who has many Kino Lau
or many different bodily forms,
one of them being the octopus or the he'e.
But all of life in the ocean
is really a representation of Kanaloa.
And so for us to be able to look at the ocean as something
to connect to personally and start sharing stories around
was really the point of this.
And we'll maybe in the chat,
I think we have a link to this world.
It's built in a platform called spatial.io
and it's a world that allowed the kids to start,
the Hawaiian youth that were in part of our program
and future navigators to start extending their reality a bit
and going into the depths of the ocean
and traveling on the ocean.
And so that's what we're gonna talk about today.
And this is just a quick video
from one of our awesome students,
Hana Le, young opio youth from Hawaii,
who, this is just a short clip,
but this is the kind of experiences
that people were having
and you can hear how Hana Le reflect.
I hope the audio is working on this.
Attendee: Yeah, I don't think the audio is coming across,
so you might wanna narrate the video is.
-: Oh, so I'll play this video.
In this video, Hana Le is talking about, I say,
I say, "Hana Le, don't be scared."
He says, "I'm not scared."
He goes, "This is kind of like my dream.
This is kind of like my dream."
And he's exploring through the realm of Kanaloa
and he's traveling back up to a world we'll share with you
in a minute, which is called our XR Nautilus,
not the EV Nautilus,
but the XR Nautilus that was built in a collaboration
with Megan and Ocean Exploration Trust and their team.
So young people coming into this and being able to enter
into these dream worlds where they're really, really drawn
some of them for the first time,
some of them on longstanding relationships
with the ocean and Kanaloa.
But they're able to draw on those and enter
into those relationships in ways that perhaps
is a bit more powerful
than with other available technologies.
Let's see if I can get to the next slide.
-: And I so love that moment with Hana Le.
It is such this,
we think about technology, phone, computer,
but we were so honored to be a supporter and to be drawn in
as a partner in this work imagining community.
Connection to community,
whether that's brand new or deep and long imagination,
stories as technology.
So just to introduce folks,
if you're not familiar with Ocean Exploration Trust,
I have the joy to work with this team.
We are a deep ocean exploring organization
and from western science practice,
these are many of the ways we go and find out what we know
or what we want to discover, what we want to explore,
learn about the ocean.
And we use technologies like large robotic vehicles,
modern exploration oceanographic ships, acoustic sonars,
and we learn things about the ocean.
Now, in the bridge to the conversation of today,
one of the best parts about our work is that we used
a suite of different technologies called telepresence,
which mean we can bring people and share those moments.
We saw the whale fall on the sea floor earlier.
That was a moment that millions of people got to see
either live or in the video.
Afterwards, dialogue and talk about
what it was like to be genuinely surprised.
I was in the control room when that happened.
We could not have sought out a whale fall
had that been our full intent.
It was just a moment where the ocean
fully, fully surprised us.
So from this place where OET is conducting science
from this western approach and our goals to,
as we move across (speaking in foreign language),
incorporate more of the traditional knowledge
and beyond this like one way that we know
with western science practice,
all the other practices of ways that we know
about these spaces.
Whether that is a three-dimensional bathymetric map.
Sure, that's one way,
but what are all the other ways
that we can know and care and connect about this place
and who are the other experts that we can pull in?
So really honored, we can go on to the next slide,
but in our approach of how we think about
and share the ocean,
we have a whole suite of different programs and resources.
Some of those are education resources,
some of those are live and interactive programs
where we have dialogues and we really inspired
and led by Daniel picked from that menu
and then just provided those tools to youth.
And we're so honored to be a very small part of this
and to see all the places where they took that.
So I just wanna call out a few pieces
that you might see later as we're exploring this world.
One started off as a virtual field trip,
which was the baby step into the XR world of being able
to go on board Nautilus and see it
in an extremely factual manner.
We extended that in this project.
Daniel extended that Purple Mai'a Foundation.
All of the students with their stories and imagination
extended that to reflect the world as they see it.
So if you would like to see the world as a camera sees it,
we invite you to check out this virtual field trip models,
whether that's Lego or 3D visuals,
these things that we provide supported by partners,
these programs that we can dialogue
about the ocean in one way,
but this story is really about how we took
these pieces parts and then just handed them to folks
with such deep connection or emerging connection
and we're blown away by all the things that they built
and the stories and connections we could make
that go so far beyond.
So onto XR Nautilus.
-: Thanks, Megan.
I also just wanna give a plug to OET.
It is amazing how Ocean Exploration Trust opens up
what they're seeing and what's happening on board the ship
and what's happening in the deep ocean to the world.
So definitely give them a follow on Nautilus live
and you're welcome to sign up.
I'm excited to be on board through most of September
in Papahānaumokuākea.
And open to doing live ship to shore interactions
with classrooms, with laboratories, with community partners
and organizations so I hope people will take us up on that.
I just wanna talk a little bit about what we did.
So thanks to the resources
that Ocean Exploration Trust provided us,
we're able to start building out this 3D world.
And so, let me see if I can pull this over to actually enter
into XR Nautilus.
So give me just a second.
I wanna try to pull that up and take us in.
I think you all can see this now and see if this will...
See how good the internet really is.
So what you're seeing here,
this is the platform spatial.io and what we have,
hopefully, there's not too much lag,
but what we have here is a 3D model of the Nautilus
and it's been sculpted combined with other imagery
and a Matterport file that creates
that photographic virtual tour Megan was just describing.
Some of you I think might be popping in here now,
or you certainly can.
If we put the link in the chat to XR Nautilus
and I can run around this world with my avatar
and I can enter into the ship.
So I have the ability to come over here and, oh,
we still have Argus loading.
Oh, I think maybe it's, there it is.
There's Argus on the deck, on the back deck of Nautilus.
And so this became our virtual classroom.
Here's Hercules in the ROV hangar
and I was able to gather here with students
and they were able to add to this environment
and create their own 3D models or find new ones.
Here I am up on the social deck where you saw me
in the photo earlier with Josh and Abel.
I can hop into the mess if I'm getting a little hungry.
They do 3 PM cookies on board the Nautilus
if you're ever lucky enough to head in there.
So you can go through this,
you can explore the bridge of the ship, the wet lab,
all different kinds of environments.
Every open public room in the ship,
you can go into an explore.
And I really, really appreciated
that this became a kind of classroom
that really shifted some of the young people's perspectives
and it was something that they wanted to build,
they wanted to contribute to.
And I was just imagining if all of our science,
if all of our culture could be shared in a way
that we were able to communicate it in a way
that was as engaging as this,
nothing's ever gonna beat or replace
sitting on (speaking in foreign language)
or being out on the water.
And yet we know that that experience is hard to create
for all of our young people
who would be able to benefit from that.
So I welcome you on board the XR Nautilus.
I hope you'll still listen to a little bit
of what we're talking about while we move forward
with the presentation.
But yeah, we're really excited
to share these spaces with you.
Let me see if I can get back to, sorry, this slideshow.
So that was the first sort of course
that we taught in the program.
It was called Kai Hohonu XR Deep Sea XR,
done in collaboration with Ocean Exploration Trust
and featuring the Nautilus,
featuring their expedition season
so that learners could start to see all the different places
that the ship would be traveling.
It's down in, I believe Johnson had told,
Megan couldn't correct me if I'm wrong,
but probably making their way back home next week,
doing some deep sea mapping and surveying
with the ROVs down there.
So just a really spectacular way to kinda create
an environment that could invite young people on board
and get them excited about scientific careers,
about the importance of culture.
We can embed protocol into these spaces.
You can host many different people including classes
in these kinds of environments.
And so that was the first part of the project
where we tried to see what we could create in XR,
learn some of the basic technologies and go deep
into the ocean, down into the realm of Kanaloa.
After that, we decided that the next course
we wanted to offer was Voyaging XR.
And we were partnered with Polynesian Voyaging Society
in preparation for their Moananuiakea voyage,
a voyage for Earth, voyage for oceans, a voyage for Earth.
We wanted to see if we could bring this voyage to life
utilizing some of these technologies.
And so again, we invited students, Hawaiian youth
to join us in exploring the resources available
on Hōkūleʻa's website, Hōkūleʻa.com
and their educational resources
at (speaking in foreign language).
And take these resources
and the knowledge and experience that their families had,
that their communities had, that they had personally
with the ocean and with canoes.
And start to tell those stories and tell the story
of the Moananuiakea voyage and XR.
And so that produced this,
the students learned how to use a tool called Blender
and turned this image of the expedition map,
of the voyage map into a 3D environment.
And what we could put the link
to this Moananuiakea world as well.
You may be able to navigate there through portals
in the XR Nautilus world.
But this became a place for the young people
to build their own sometimes with Play-Doh and Legos,
sometimes using cardboard and paper,
but sometimes, using advanced technology.
They were using an application called polycam to do
scannings of LiDAR and photogrammetry.
We were taking some of those things underwater
so they could scan coral reefs and creatures
under the water.
Usually experimenting with those techniques,
not having very much success,
but seeing the challenge of working in the field
and developing these kinds of 3D environments
and mostly just diving into the story,
what is Moananuiakea all about?
Why are we sailing around the Pacific?
Why is it important to connect with our indigenous friends
and families around this ocean
and combine science with culture to figure out
how to protect this place?
And those are stories that are hard to live in just text
or even just in video or images.
There's something about this immersive
extended reality environment that that opens things up
for a little bit more complexity to live.
And so excited to see as we continue to make our way
around the Pacific over the next four years,
how we can start building out
more and more of these stories.
I have the drone with us on this particular leg, leg six,
and have put it up a couple of times to start seeing
if we can build 3D models of some of the places
that we've been.
So leveraging tools that are pretty accessible
to our communities and that we're excited to put
into the hands of young people
to see what they wanna build and can build
and not get distracted by,
but take deeper dives into the significance
of these practices of these places and ultimately,
of our profound sacred relationship
with the ocean and Kanaloa.
So I'm gonna stop there
and we'll move to questions in just a minute,
but I really wanna stop sharing screen
and just take a second to hear from Brittany and Megan,
if you hear something and you want to jump in as well,
please feel free, but the question remains,
can these technologies, these new technologies,
can they help us go deeper?
And the whole point of this is that it was an experiment.
It was a project to see what the young people
would be able to do, how they would engage.
But we're walking a fine line in an age where so much
of our so-called technology is a distraction,
is something that disconnects us.
The language we use around our technology separates us.
And just like Brittany started talking to us
about we are not separated,
we are deeply connected and the ocean connects us
and we wanna be utilizing technologies like the vaʻa,
like the voyaging canoe that reconnect us
and deepen that connection.
And it's the same thing to be said
of the Nautilus technologies and those ROV systems
and mapping systems is how can these technologies
be utilized to help us deepen our relationship
with the ocean?
So yeah, Brittany, I don't if you have some thoughts,
I'd love to hear them.
-: Absolutely, thoughts that you know, of course. (chuckles)
Yeah, I think like one thing
like Dan and I have talked about,
and I kinda wanted to bring it to this audience
to seed you on your way,
is that there's this conflict in me
and my background is, I wanna explore and I'm gonna work
on building the most precise instruments to do so.
And I understand how we do that
by really intricately understanding how light works,
how sound works.
This is all the technology behind LiDAR, sonar,
it's the physics of what happens.
That's in tension with understanding
what sacred practices are.
And so there are places that we're not meant to see,
we're not meant to hear at all.
There are times when you bow your head and you walk away
and you don't look at things in a cultural practice.
So then if I take this exploratory thing and I start looking
at something and I don't have a sense
of what even is that cultural protocol to do that,
let alone like sharing that around the world.
I think we're in a really tricky area.
And that conflict comes up too
when I see images from the deep,
like first I worry about the creatures because now,
we're like throwing photons like light at them
and we're throwing sound at them
and I worry about them and I also worry
about how did we enter that realm.
How did we enter into this sacred place, po?
There's so much depth to that in just spiritually
and just physically on our planet.
And when I'm gonna take an instrument
like a robot or any rover,
I have a responsibility to that in the way
that I would my child.
Like this is my kin.
And in technology, we absolutely
do not have that conversation, right?
I don't go and write a piece of code and then now,
it's my responsibility to know what the code
does until it's 18 and then it goes on its very way.
And so when we're really talking about these relationships,
what does it look like when we're gonna have a practice
with our robot?
And it's a totally different thing.
We don't yet have robot protocol,
we don't have rover protocol, we don't have sensor protocol,
but the same way our ancestors in the past
ran into new things is that you developed
what you needed to develop.
So it's like, I think that's the thing
that I keep feeling a tension with.
Of like, do we have to see the deep to protect it?
-: I love it, I love it.
I know I wanna open it up for questions too
and others might have similar questions to that.
I just wanna add that I think this conversation
about what is pono, what is appropriate, what is balanced,
what is right, I think it's a big question,
especially with in the extended reality.
What are the protocol that can shape that space?
As we do reach out into space time
and we'd go deep into the ocean
or we go far out into space and the ways that we're able
to communicate around that and the intention
with which we come to those spaces
and the humility with which we enter into those spaces.
How do we cultivate that given the risk
that it becomes so easy to just flip a switch
and I can turn on the bottom of the ocean
or the depths of outer space or can travel
through time because we can image different times and places
with these technologies and if it becomes too easy
and too convenient, then do we lose
some of the what's sacred about that?
And how do we make sure we keep reminding ourselves
of not to go on that journey?
So there's a powerful ethical questions
and important conversation.
So Megan, I see you popping on.
Do you wanna add your (speaking in foreign language)?
-: Oh, thank you so much, Mahalo.
Yeah, I would love to,
I think this conversation is so important
and one of the most beautiful things about the ocean
is to me is it's like sheer scale and power.
And one of the things I value as someone
who wants to learn about the ocean,
I think we'll spend my whole life learning about the ocean
as I hope all of us will,
is that idea of knowledge being,
you can't like go get it.
It has to be revealed in its time and in its place.
And I just wanna uplift and echo
like how much indigenous leaders
are the future of this space
and the leaders learning from
and leading from that deep relationship.
And by being able to have conversations
that go beyond these like little boxes that we put,
like we're learning, we're exploring,
and about how we can enter different places,
all across the Pacific and who are the right leaders
who, if relationship is built and trust is built,
can lead scientists, technology developers, educators,
managers, policy and government.
These relationships in this knowledge exists
and the more we elevate indigenous leaders in these spaces
so that different knowledge will be revealed to people
who have different relationship to this place.
And they'll be able to bring in practices
and guidance that should be humbly received
by the rest of the community,
by which how to hold yourself in that space
and how to approach if you have that same desire to learn
about that ocean?
So just wanna echo how honored we are as a team to be,
baby steps learning, but I hope on behalf
of other communities that can follow in this
about how to put indigenous leaders front and center
in your organizations.
Empower them, trust them and those people
will have different relationship,
different opportunity to have knowledge revealed,
different opportunities to like lead
in these creative directions.
And I think that is super key
in how we advance both that ethics and those boundaries
of knowing when and where it's time
to stop and reflect and regroup or reconsider or reimagine
the right questions, let alone different answers.
But back to Brittany, your thoughts.
-: Mahalo, Megan, Mahalo, Brittany.
And Andy.
I just Andy, see you coming on 'cause maybe we have
a few questions I hope.
I hope people are are curious about this.
-: Yeah, they are,
I mean mostly just alohas and some of the people
you visited along the coast from Alaska
were saying hi and grateful to see you again and so grateful
for your visit and connect
with the different tribal communities along the coast.
And one question was,
and then we did post the link in the chat
was whether the tools would be publicly available
for the exploration tools and we posted that.
So yes, I don't know if you wanna add anything to that,
Daniel or Brittany about people
using those io tool exploration tools.
-: Yeah, I'll just say that all the tools
that we chose were designed to be...
That we could at least facilitate access to those tools
for our community.
I won't say that they're all open and free.
Spatial is a tool that you can use for free
and a tool called polycam,
which is a software that allows you to use LiDAR
in your phones or iPads and photogrammetry
or structure from motion to do 3D scans to actually create
what we call meshes and textures so that you can start
building things in these 3D worlds.
That's also available for free.
There are paid options,
but if you have questions about the technologies,
I would really welcome you to reach out to me
at dan@purplemaia.org and I can try to put that
into the chat as well so people have access to that.
But we're happy to share that,
we're excited about these tools
and would for people to reach out if they have
more questions about the specific technologies that we use.
The spatial environments we created,
we're also happy to share.
And you have the couple that we showed today,
but there are many, many more that were created by the youth
and by our team and we'd love for people to get in there
and add their own stories and build their own spaces.
-: Great.
And one specific question,
have you considered XR for real time collaboration?
Like for example, using a VR headset to see what the ROV is
while it's exploring the bottom?
-: That's a great question
for Megan and her team I think.
But yes, in terms of life on board the voyaging canoe
and I think at least in my own imagination,
life on board Nautilus,
it would be we're getting closer and closer
to the point where our telepresence capabilities,
our map can align with some of our other software
and hardware that that's gonna allow us
to share those experiences
in 3D and in real time or near real time.
So that is the direction that things are moving in
and we are interested and thinking about that
and being very deliberate and careful
about what that looks like and means.
But yeah, that's a cool question and excited.
There are folks in the audience
who are also scheming in that direction.
Megan, do you wanna add your thoughts to that question?
-: We love that question.
I think one of the beautiful things I've gotten to learn
is how you learn with five senses
from the Hawaiian worldview and the connection there.
We're not there yet to five senses
of the deep sea, for sure.
But I am excited that folks are thinking
about more of this immersion and I wanna invite you
to join us on a Nautilus expedition
where we're going to be testing
some additional technology this season.
So Nautilus is broadcasting 24 hours a day.
I should have checked,
I believe they're on the sea floor now
or they will be in the next 12 hours.
And we have these sequences of expeditions that continue
all throughout the year.
We'll be in Papahānaumokuākea in September
and then October, we'll be testing some new camera systems
that will better allow or allow us to explore
some of this model building.
Again, we're not there yet on real time in 3D.
Be kinda cool though 'cause everything behind you
would be the ROV from where the cameras are right now.
But envisioning that our main ROV
is about the size of a minivan.
So like also imagining where would you want to look?
And in the very most basic sense,
we only bring a few lights that only go in one direction.
So in thinking about like an immersive view
may kind of look a little bit like this out into the light,
but what could you see looking back into the darker,
what could you see looking out in any of the directions
or using more of your senses.
So that's where my mind goes.
I imagine myself when we have the chance
these like privileged views to look into the ocean,
I kinda always imagined like, what if you turned around?
What might you see?
So I love that creativity,
imagination from the audience and we're going there.
We have have some visions for sure.
-: Yeah, well, Mahalo, everyone for your great presentation.
We are running by running out of time.
We have a couple of additional connections
that we can explore in the future.
But mahalo nui loa for a wonderful talk and for dialogue,
Brittany and Daniel and Megan, it was very inspiring
and so many more things to come for the future on this.
But thank you again for joining us
and I'm gonna close with a few additional slides.
So just to let you know,
this webinar was recorded and we will be posting
the recording after we get it transcribed in about 10 days
to the website that you see there.
But also on there we have many other webinars
that we've done.
So please explore that site with yourself,
your classroom, your friends,
and you can learn many things about Papahānaumokuākea
and the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries.
And you'll also beginning a certificate
for participating in this, for professional development.
An hour was worth a professional development.
And as mentioned numerous times throughout the talk,
please make sure to connect with Hōkūleʻa
during the Moananuiakea voyage.
There is an objective for this voyage
and it is to reconnect people with the earth,
with their environment and what we're doing.
So please be a part of that.
There's virtual ways to connect
in the waahonua.com educational part of it,
and also just to follow the voyage and the blogs
and the postings and the videos and everything
that comes off the voyage.
And of course the Nautilus is currently live
and in the Pacific Remote Islands south of us.
So please join along with that expedition.
And then at the beginning of September,
they will be voyaging to Papahānaumokuākea.
So please follow along in that voyage.
And if you have a classroom,
please sign them up for ship to shore interaction
off of the nautiluslive.org site.
And finally, please fill out our survey for what else
you'd like to see in these presentations
because we would love to hear from you
and we would love to hear what else you want us to cover.
So again, mahalo nui loa for all the presenters
and for everyone attending.
That was a wonderful talk and we look forward
to more dialogue on this subject in the future.
So (speaking in foreign language)
and next month, we'll have another presentation.
So, mahalo.
-: Mahalo, Andy and Aloha from the whole crew of Hōkūleʻa.
I appreciate everyone tuning in.
-: Alright, big voyage.
Aloha.
-: Aloha.