Saturday, November 24, 2007:
Steady as we go...
We have been making steady progress at improving our operation.Of course, there are still better things to do...
(continued...)
Congratulations are in order for the whole team as we have accomplished the goal for this season here in Antarctica: We can navigate under the ice. We have used Project Scini's nav equipment on the Video Ray and succesfully made maps of in-place science equipment on the seafloor. We have made good use of the sonar Video Ray lent to us to find the old experiments.
Sonar image of three cages that have been on the ocean floor for up to 40 years.
Peque is proud to lend a flipper. Note the Nav Ducer now stands upright (the better to hear) after sonar installation. Extra blocks of foam have been added high on the vehicle to compensate for the added mass of the sonar. A well-deserved rest is in order.
Video Ray gets a freshwater soak in the sink after a busy day of swimming in the salty ocean.Meanwhile, back at the lab...SCINI has been undergoing a testing program seeking to tune the power system in order to run the propulsion thrusters more smoothly. Bryan has had the lead on this and had worked long and hard, and has made great progress. Most of the week SCINI's inside were outside as we tested, measured and tweaked.
Doctor Bryan operates...
There is still work to do, but we have the brains to do it. Nick will need to build up the thruster motors so we have spares. Bob and Bryan will test various fixes we have impleneted as they put the vehicle back together. And finally we will be operating SCINI in a seawater tank in Crary Lab to ensure we have a reliable build. Then back we go under the ice. To help make sure we are prepared for that harsh environment we have enlisted the aid of Peque, the worlds most technically astute penguin, to oversee the entire operation.
Peque stands ready to help with the assembly of SCINI
Comments:
You may not enjoy writing the posts but its great to read them for folks who can't be there.
Have all of Dr Dayton's experiments been located?
As of our finds this year, we have general locations for all of Dayton's sites that I know of. It will take getting Dr. Dayton back down here to interpret them correctly, as each site has dozens of individual structures.
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