GeoGarage blog

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

UK & misc. update in the GeoGarage platform

X Prize to map 4,000m-deep ocean floor with robots

The $7 Million Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE is a global, three-year competition challenging teams to advance breakthrough technologies for rapid, unmanned and high-resolution ocean exploration

From BBC by Jonathan Amos

There is a new X Prize to accelerate technologies to explore the ocean.
Shell is sponsoring the competition, which will challenge teams to map a 4km-deep, 500-sq-km area of sea floor using autonomous robots.
The award, which is valued at $7m (£4.6m), will have to be claimed before the end of 2018.
Previous ocean incentives put up by the X Prize organisation have helped develop oil clean-up solutions and sensors to monitor ocean acidification.
The new challenge was announced at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in San Francisco - the largest annual gathering of Earth scientists.
The motivation is the lack of high-resolution maps of the ocean bed. More than 90% of the sea floor has not been surveyed in detail.

X Prize technical director Dr Jyotika Virmani said much remained to be discovered about our planet.
"It was a Caribbean sponge that gave us AZT, the compound used in AIDS treatments. There are many more medical benefits just waiting to be discovered, but we have no idea because the oceans remain largely unexplored," she told BBC News.

Besides mapping the sea floor, the organizers of the Ocean XPrize hope that the new technology it inspires could help researchers identify things such as sources of pollution and compounds that could be of medical benefit. (XPrize)

Although technologies already exist to survey the seabed at 4,000m down, the particular rules of the Shell Ocean Discovery competition will make even current experts in the field scratch their heads.
The entrants will have to deploy their solutions from land or from the air; they cannot use a ship or even be in the survey area at the time.
So, no cable can be used to remotely operate vehicles; they will need to be fully autonomous.

"There's a Planet we've yet to understand. Ours."
Dr Jyotika Virmani: "Every time we go into the deep ocean we find something new"

There will be two rounds to the competition.
The first, to be held in 2017, will be undertaken at a shallower depth of 2,000m, and require teams to make a bathymetric map of at least 20% of a 500-sq-km zone of seabed in roughly 6-8 hours.
The top 10 teams will then go forward to the second round, which will be held at the full competition depth of 4,000m.
At least 50% of this area will have to be mapped in 12-15 hours.
A scanning resolution of 5m per pixel is demanded.
The teams will have to return high-resolution pictures from the deep as well, of a target specified by the organizers.
Control and communications in the dark at 4,000m will be tough enough, never mind the consideration of pressure, which will be about 40 megapascals - nearly 6,000 pounds per square inch.

New XPrize encourages robotic ocean exploration :
1. make a bathymetric map
2. produce high-resolution images of a specific object
3. identify archeological, biological, or geological features

"Four thousand metres is certainly challenging and we're looking forward to seeing some very innovative technologies," said Dr Virmani.
X Prize CEO Dr Peter Diamandis added: "What we're going to see will be more autonomous; it's going to be smaller; it's going to be cheaper; it's probably going to be swarm in nature. This is what we're seeing because of the proliferation of cellphone technology. Robots are getting much more capable."
$1m of the $7m will be reserved for the team that can demonstrate new chemical and biological underwater sensors.
To win this, the group will need to "sniff" a target to its source in the survey zone.
That prize is sponsored by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa).
"Right now we can bring seawater to a lab and detect what chemical and biological signatures are in there. We're looking to develop pioneering, breakthrough technology to do that in situ," Dr Virmani told BBC News.

"A new era of ocean exploration" by Peter Diamandis (Boston Globe)

This is the third ocean-related X Prize.
The California-based organization plans two more under its Ocean Initiative, which is "designed to identify our oceans' grand challenges and what we can do to solve them".
The most famous X Prize saw a privately developed rocket pane fly into space.
Other competitions still in progress seek to put robots on the Moon and to develop Star-Trek-style "tricorders" to monitor people's vital signs.

Links :

The Conversation : Just how little do we know about the ocean floor?
Boston Globe : New XPRIZE will map the world’s oceans
GeoGarage blog : 20,000 colleagues under the sea / Autosub6000, a robot sub for charting nearly every inch of the ocean / Mapping landscapes in the deep ocean / It’s time to geek out over a new global bathymetric data set

Monday, December 14, 2015

Seabin Project : Cleaning our oceans one marina at a time

Seabin Project : Cleaning our oceans one marina at a time.

From SeabinProject

We have designed and made an automated rubbish bin that catches floating rubbish, oil, fuel and detergents.
It designed for floating docks in the water of marinas, private pontoons, inland waterways, residential lakes, harbours, water ways, ports and yacht clubs.
Can even be fitted to super yachts and motor yachts!
Right now we have a perfectly working prototype and we need the help of Indiegogo and supporters to set up a production of the Seabins to be built in the most sustainable and responsible way we can afford.

How can the Seabin help clean the worlds oceans starting with marinas?

We start close to the source of the problem in a controlled environment.
The marinas, ports and yacht clubs are the perfect place to start helping clean our oceans.
There are no huge open ocean swells or storms inside the marinas, its a relatively controlled environment.
The wind and currents are constantly moving the floating debris around in our oceans and in every port, marina or yacht club there is always some pollution heavy areas based on the predominant wind and current directions.
By working with these marinas , ports and yacht clubs we can locate the seabin in the perfect place and mother nature brings us the rubbish to catch it.
Sure we cant catch everything right now but its a really positive start.
It’s a big mission, but it can be done.
In fact, we’re doing it right now.

... and how does it work?

Seabin project | 24/7/365 Automated Marina Rubbish Bin Collector

The Seabin is situated at the waters surface and is plumbed into a shore based water pump on the dock.
The water gets sucked into the Seabin bringing all floating debris and floating liquids into the Seabin.
We catch all the floating debris inside the Seabin and the water then flows out through the bottom of the bin and up into the pump on the dock.
The water then flows through the pump where we have the option of installing an oil/water separator and clean water then flows back into the ocean.

The shore based water pump plumbed into the Seabin

This process is constant, operating 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
Inside the Seabin we have a natural fiber “catch bag” which collects all the floating debris.
When this is full or near to full, the marina worker simply changes the catch bag with another one. The collected debris is then disposed of responsibly, the catch bag cleaned and now it is ready to swap again for the full one in the still operating Seabin.

We have designed the size of the Seabin and catch bag for safe working load for one person to safely change the catch bag.
If the Seabin is full it still works.
The flow of the water simply pulls all the surrounding floating debris against the Seabin and keeps it there.
The marina worker would simply scoop up the surrounding debris and then change the catch bag as normal.

What are the goals for the Seabin Project?

To help rid the oceans of plastics and pollution.
To have a Seabin production in place by mid to end of 2016 and start shipping.
To create Seabins from the most sustainable materials and processes available.
To have the lowest carbon footprint possible in the production of the Seabins by means of alternative materials and processes. Also by reducing shipping and having the Seabins manufactured in the countries of installation.
To create and support local economies with the production, maintenance and installation of the Seabins world wide.
To have future models of Seabins for specific locations.
To educate people and cultures about being more responsible with the use and disposal of plastics.
To setup educational programs for students in schools.
To convert our captured plastics into energy.
To reuse or recycle our Seabins for other uses and or applications.
To have pollution free oceans with no need for the Seabins.