Ocean tech
The Call of the Sea
Marshall Swartz’s lab is a Santa’s workshop of engineering gadgetry. Computer keyboards and circuit boards spill from cardboard boxes. Cables, wires, and an assortment of tools hang from wall hooks.…
Basic Sea Cable Gets a High-tech Upgrade
In April, when the Deepwater Horizon petroleum drilling rig exploded and oil began gushing from…
New Head of WHOI Fleet Comes Aboard
<!– –> Sometimes, a career change has the feel of deferred destiny. “I was in…
A Robot Is Resurrected at Sea
Barely a month after the undersea robot ABE imploded and was lost in the depths,…
Scuba Gear and Origami
Terry Rioux has lived the life aquatic. He took a scuba diving course in college…
R.I.P. A.B.E
A pioneering deep-sea exploration robot—one of the first successful submersible vehicles that was both unmanned…
A Robot Starts to Make Decisions on its Own
It’s a lot easier to send a bloodhound to track a criminal, or your kid…
The Squid, the Whale, and the Grad Student
On the Serengeti Plains of Africa, lions stalk their prey mainly by sight. Scientists studying…
Clara Smart
Ask Clara Smart about her interests, and be prepared to receive a formidable list of…
Eleanor Bors
While her Oberlin classmates were accepting their diplomas at their graduation ceremony back in Ohio,…
Stephanie Chin
Stephanie Chin is most likely the only Summer Student Fellow whose project could one day…
Buoys Help Avert Whale-Ship Collisions
A lot of lines crisscross, run parallel, and ultimately connect in this story. The first…
Turning a Toy into a Scientific Tool
John Bailey spends most sunny weekends on a grassy field behind a movie theater on…
The Airplane That Studied the Ocean
Airplanes don’t typically come to mind when people think of ocean science. But for 25…
Floating Without Imploding
To allow a heavy vehicle to float in the deepest depths, Don Peters and other…
Let There Be Light in the Dark Depths
Jonathan Howland has worked as an engineer for 20 years in the Deep Submergence Lab…
Armed and Dexterous
Matt Heintz is a research engineer in the Deep Submergence Lab at Woods Hole Oceanographic…
2,000 Batteries Under the Sea
Daniel Gomez-Ibañez has been an engineer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution for three years. Much…
Miles Under the Sea, Hanging on by Hair-Thin Fiber
Andy Bowen has been developing robotic deep-sea technology for many years, starting his career at…
Nereus Soars to the Ocean’s Deepest Trench
It took a village of engineers to build a completely new type of unmanned deep-sea…
While Oil Gently Seeps from the Seafloor
I investigate what happens to oil spilled into the ocean—with an eye toward finding better…
A New Deep-Sea Robot Called Sentry
There’s been a changing of the guard among deep-sea exploration vehicles. Sentry, a new undersea…