2019

blue eye: a low cost, deep-sea drop cam

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In 2018, I attended All Hands on Deck, an event co-organized by the MIT Media Lab and NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, in which policy makers, scientists, activists and change makers in ocean exploration met to imagine new ways to empower an open, inclusive global community of ocean explorers.

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This event motivated me to develop a low cost device to explore the deep sea, after I learned that "70 percent of countries have deep-sea environments within their maritime Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs), yet only 16 percent of them are able to explore those environments. The scarcity of technological capability and knowledge leads to a lack of exploration, inappropriate or inadequate management decisions, and unaware populations" (source: MIT Media Lab My Deep Sea, My Backyard).

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My goal was to develop an Arduino-powered drop-cam capable of submerging 500 meters below the sea at a maximum cost of US$500, and make it open-source after it has been fully tested. I developed this project in 2019 but I am still refining the design to make it easier to operate and make it cheaper (so far, its cost is about US$1,000).

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I presented the results of this project at the 2019 Global Community Biosummit organized by the MIT Media Lab, and during summer 2022, I released everything as open source. In my GitHub repository you will find the bill of materials, the assembly guide, the software and the STL files of 3D parts, everything you need to build, set up and use it.

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Acknowledgements

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Special thanks to Brennan Phillips PhD, Assistant Professor of Ocean Engineering at the University of Rhode Island, for sharing his knowledge, passion and enthusiasm with me. His advice was key for building the Blue Eye (he knows everything, but if he doesn't know, he knows who does!).

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Many thanks to Cristobal Huguet for taking me to test the Blue Eye in the marine reserve and to Maria Cefalí PhD and Juancho Movilla PhD (Research Station "Jaume Ferrer" in Menorca, Spain) for their feedback and recommendations.