Alabama STEM Explorers is made possible by the generous suppor of the Hudson Alpha Institute for Biotechnology Southern Research.

Solving the world's hardest problems the Holle Family Foundation Alabama Works.

Alabama's STEM Council.

Alabama Mathematics, Science, Technology and Engineering Coalition, Alabama Math, Science and Technology Initiative.

I love aquariums.

It's great that you can see through the glass to look at the different animals underwater.

You can't do that out in the ocean, though.

I wonder how scientists study life underwater where it's really deep.

I think I might know who can help us out.

Welcome to Alabama STEM explorers.

I'm Neil.

And Cruz and I are here at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, and Alabama aquarium on the Gulf Coast of Alabama.

We're here with Dr. Tina Miller Way, who is the chair of Discovery Hall Programs for Education and Outreach at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab.

Tina Cruz and I were talking about how you actually explore underneath the underneath the ocean surface, in the depths.

Can you help us with that?

Oh, I'd love to.

You know, I think the ocean's fascinating There's so much left to learn.

Yeah.

You know, the ocean is about 36,000 feet or 11,000 meters deep.

And obviously we can't put on a little mask and snorkel and go all the way down there.

So we actually use underwater robots or something called remotely operated vehicles to explore and to work in the deep ocean.

You want to build one today?

Yeah, sure.

You know, Cruz we were talking about things that we used to explore under the ocean, and one of those things that we use are underwater robots.

And there's lots of different kinds of underwater robots.

But today we're going to talk about ROV is, you know what ROV stands for?

I don't know what remotely operated vehicles, and I've got a couple here to show you want to see.

Yeah.

I want you to look at this one and tell me what you notice.

Sort of like a lane.

Oh yeah, this one's really heavy.

Same type of propellers.

Or this one has a camera.

Oh, very good.

And what am I holding here?

Wires.

Wires?

This is the important part, and this is one of the things that makes an ROV an ROV.

It has a cable connecting it to the boat, and we call that a tether.

Right?

So you're right.

I mean, ROVs have a tether.

They have motors.

And then they have some way that we can see what the ROV is seeing like a camera.

OK. You want to build one?

Yeah.

Well, let me show you something We got another one here that is hand built, but I want you to look at this and tell me what you see that similar to what you saw on these propellers.

Awesome.

More wires.

And what do we call that wire tether, right?

Very good.

There's this thing right here.

Mm hmm.

Sponges.

These are actually buoyancy, right?

So we build these things.

If you're putting a couple thousand dollars or $1,000,000 into one of these ROVs, you want it to be slightly buoyant, right?

That means floating to the surface because if something goes wrong and you lose this tether, it becomes disconnected and it sinks to the bottom of the ocean.

What's going to happen?

It goes away, basically.

You can't really retrieve it, right?

And, you know, do things ever go wrong at all?

Yeah.

Yeah.

But do so to really figure out how to build one, which is what we're going to do today.

We have to talk a little bit about buoyancy.

You cool with that?

Yeah.

What do you think?

Buoyancy is the stuff that floats?

Maybe.

Yeah.

So making things lighter than water, right?

So let me show you something.

Standard Styrofoam Cup is that heavy?

No, no.

It's this light.

Right?

So what that has in it is air air is part of the material that makes up Styrofoam.

Right?

The same reason that you cannot dive down to 5000 feet in the water.

This is why, because we have air in our lungs.

Exactly.

And that pressure when you go deeper in the ocean, that pressure will compress that air and it'll kill us, right?

Yes.

But look what it does to something that has air in it.

So this is the exact same cup as that, only one that went down deep in the ocean on the outside of an ROV.

What do you say?

Wow, that's a smaller, compressed.

Exactly.

Wow.

This is compressed all that air and made a perfect little cup just from something that looked like that because that air was compressed What you saw as the sponges or the pool noodles on our ROV is what keeps it buoyant from sinking to the bottom.

In this case of the water out here in the Gulf of Mexico, cool.

Well, let's do this.

Let's grab our pieces and start building.

What do you think?

Yeah, that sounds really exciting.

So things to keep in mind, right, is you got to have your motors, that's what makes it move.

So these are the motors that you're going to use, right Well, yes, the where you put those motors is important.

You want to go forward and you want to go backwards, but you also want to go up and down.

Right.

So you got to think about that when you figure out where to put your motors and then this is your control box that's already wired for you.

And that is the same thing that this is right.

It just looks a little different.

That's how you make the motors go.

And then importantly, you've got to have some power, right?

You got to have batteries.

Yes, to make it go.

And that's a big deal in the deep sea is getting batteries, so we have easy batteries over here.

That's our power source.

And this is your connector to the power source.

So we'll build the frame with the motors and then we'll plug it in and see if it goes.

Does this sound like a plan?

Yeah.

All right.

Let's start building.

What can I do to help?

What are you thinking about?

Square, maybe.

OK.

Sort of like that one.

So let's give you some corners, huh?

Yeah.

All right.

Oh, why?

Yeah, so then you're creating that space right within the frame that we're going to put those motors now, the way these motors are set up is they have a little joint here, and that's the way that you're going to hook them to the frame So let's think about that.

What is a way that you can hook those motors to the frame?

Oh, there's an idea.

Yeah.

So you want something to hold that motor?

Maybe if you did that and then take that motor?

Yeah.

Well, I'll tell you, we've done the wiring for you.

So you know, all of each of those switches controls one of the motors.

So now I'll hold that and you keep building.

You've got a left motor and a right motor, look at this one here, right?

We've got one on each side so that we can make it curve left or curve right when we're flying.

You know, and that's a funny thing.

We don't talk about drive in an ROV We talk about flying an ROV even though it's in the water, it's still flying.

So what are you thinking?

We maybe you do that, OK?

We could put this here.

Yes.

OK, so that could be up down motor.

Right?

So now we just have to build one kind of on the other side, right to sort of mirror what you've already built here.

So maybe I can help you out if you're okay with that, putting a couple of pieces in?

Yeah.

OK, boy, it's beginning to take shape.

Yeah, you just got to squeeze that stuff together.

What else you need going to do this first right here and I'm going to get a purple right here.

OK, connect this.

All right.

That?

Well, now we got one more motor to put on Where are we going to put that?

If you thinking ahead?

you got a plan, I got a plan to do this doesn't have anything to hook into right here.

Is that OK?

Yeah, that's what that would be fun.

But actually, no, let's do this first.

You know, when we're putting equipment in the ocean, we want it to be as strong as possible, so I see something that's missing here.

Yes.

What do you see that's missing?

This part right here, there you go.

Yeah.

So let's complete that out, and that'll bring some strength to the frame.

All right.

Here's your black.

Now this on this one, you connected it to this, that gives it strength right here and there, you just have that blue piece going up and here you've used that connection for the motors.

So maybe if we had a four parter, you know, it's got four ways of plugging in this putting that there would give it strength.

You still have one for the motor.

You'd have to to hook it to the cross brace, but then you'd have one to hook it to the bottom brace to and that would give it extra strength.

All right.

Well, let's try it this way and see if it holds where they put it right back into their right and see if it holds when we put it in the water.

All right.

So we've got our left motor, our right motor, we've got our up and down motor.

So I think we're set you want to plug it in and give it a go.

Make sure it's working before you put it in the pool.

Yep.

So here's the connection between the motors and the control box, also known as the do you remember that the tether Right, exactly.

But the one thing we're missing right now is the connection to the power source.

So that battery right there is our power source for today.

So we're going to plug it in right here.

Yeah.

Now everything's plugged in, right when you flip the switches on that control box.

The motors should turn.

Let's try it.

The battery source is on.

So there is power flowing to your control box and you are the ROV pilot now with that.

And just flip it up or down.

Oh, there you go.

Yeah.

Yeah, this is really we got it all working, yep.

Now you notice when you flip those switches that the motors can go one way, but they can also go the other way, right?

Yes.

So that's important to remember when we take it out to the pool and we want to try to drive it right out in the pool and drive it through around obstacles.

Or do missions carry out tasks in the water?

I'm the senior research laboratory manager here at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab.

I technically work for the University of South Alabama And so you could say that I am in academia.

The main part of my job is teaching.

But I don't actually teach in a classroom, so I get to teach in a laboratory or on a boat.

But one of the coolest things about my job is that I get to do research.

This is our remotely operated vehicle.

It's an outline 2000.

It's a small commercial class ROV but we actually use this in research.

So we use this to study the population dynamics of fishes.

We're looking at abundance and distribution.

We get to look at the size of the fish that are down there and then we can also look at movement of the fishes and behavior of fish underwater So I drive this ROV mostly offshore Alabama.

So Alabama's waters near shore are pretty cloudy.

You really can't see too much.

If you've been to the beach in Alabama, try to swim around or snorkel.

You notice that it's not super clear.

So most of the time we're working anywhere from 10, 20 all the way out to 90 miles offshore.

And what we mostly study is Alabama's artificial reef zone.

So what's really cool is the state of Alabama actually puts a lot of resources into its fishery and creates habitat for fish to live on.

And so I get to go out to these different habitats and examine the reef type.

So we look at different types of reefs.

They might be rubble, rock, rubble, they could be artificial reef pyramids.

We can look at those different habitats.

We can count the fish on the reef, see what different types of fish there are and actually look at the size of the fish using these lasers.

So anyone interested in becoming a marine biologist, a fisheries biologist, a fisheries researcher, an offshore explorer, I would say at a very young age, just read and learn as much as you can about the oceans.

So study math, science, learn about technology, learn as much about computers as possible, but you don't have to live on the coast to to do this type of work.

So I would just say, you know, learn as much as possible, visit on vacation like the Dauphin Island Sea Lab and read and study as much as you can.

OK, Cruz we're almost ready to deploy it which is a fancy way for saying we're going to put it in the ocean and fly it.

We got to think about one thing if you're going to carry out a task in the ocean, whether it's, you know, welding something, fixing a leaking oil well or whether it's observing fish or collecting animals that we've never seen before.

So we've got to add something like an arm or a claw or something on that ROV frame.

So in the way that we do that in the ocean is we use the power of hydraulics.

That's a fancy word, simply meaning that we're moving fluid We are causing motion by making fluid move.

And I have this really cool little model that I want you to play with that demonstrates hydraulics.

So I want you to play with those plungers and tell me what you observe when you move them.

So we have this red one right here.

And what happened when you moved that moved it left and right?

There you go.

And then this green one here moves its waist.

This blue one goes up and down.

There you go.

And then the yellow one opens and closes the grabber arms.

All right.

So you're right.

Well, I'll tell you, this is just water that's been colored just so that you can see the differences.

But you're right, by moving those plungers, you've caused motion in any part of our model here.

So I'm going to challenge you.

I want you to pick up that ping pong ball and with your model, and I want you to drop it in that tower, OK?

And now he's caught it, got it.

Yeah.

And what do we say in the ocean?

You've got to retrieve it.

And bingo Very good, very good.

So I mean, just by the simple movement of water of fluid, right?

You can do things with an arm.

And so we would develop a hydraulic arm to put on our ROV so that when we took it in the ocean, we could go and do things with it, right?

So what can we use to make things float sponges, pool noodles, pool noodle noodles?

What else?

What might we use?

What, what it might tell me?

What would happen if I took a closed container of air and I'm in a swimming pool and I'm going to hold it down here and I let go, what's going to happen to that bottle?

I guess it's going to float up.

It is why?

Because there's air in it.

Exactly.

So, you know, we could use this to we could fill this with air or I just didn't like it and then strap it to the side of our friend.

So there are a whole bunch of different kinds of things that we can use for buoyancy on ROVs.

We have an example here of catch.

Did you think I was thrown a brick at you?

No, not really.

No, it's pretty light in the air.

This is what we use in real commercial ROVs for buoyancy.

It's called syntactic foam, and syntactic foam is basically glass spheres filled with air.

Right air is less dense.

That's what we use for.

It's pretty solid.

It's pretty solid, right?

That glass is all glued together.

So let's put some buoyancy on your ROV and get ready to go deploy it.

What do you think?

I think I'm ready.

All right.

There you go.

All right.

So Cruz are going to be adding some buoyancy to your ROV.

We've got some pool noodles, you know?

Have you ever played with a pool noodle?

I have.

If you're at the bottom of the pool and let go, what happens to it?

But that basically just comes right?

There you go.

So we've just cut them into sections right to use on your frame.

So why don't you add buoyancy to your frame?

And of course, when we get out to the pool will adjust how much, how many pool noodles you have out there.

Because again, we build our ROVs to be slightly, positively buoyant right here.

Good.

Do you think it's important to have it balanced?

Yes.

Why is that so it doesn't tip over or do this?

Yeah, right?

You'll have one side that's more buoyant than the other.

And so it'll be uneven in the water.

You know, in one of the tasks that we use RO for is hovering and looking at things.

And if you're like this, you know, the world's kind of look cockeyed.

Now I'm interested in why you didn't put the buoyancy down here.

Why is that?

What were you thinking about?

Because if I did, it would basically just tip over.

Yes.

Right.

You want your buoyancy on the top.

If you put it here and not here, the whole thing would go poop right and be upside down, if you will.

That's right.

And you know, there's several different ways for actually figuring out how much buoyancy you need, right?

You want it to be.

If you made it too buoyant, it can't dive in the water can't go down, which is what you're building it for, right?

So you don't want to put too much buoyancy on, but you also want it to be slightly buoyant so that if it becomes disconnected, it'll float up to the top.

So you can actually weigh all this stuff and calculate using math how much buoyancy you actually need with these pool noodles.

We just go out, we test, we add some more and we take some away.

We retest, and that's also a way that engineers work.

Cool.

All right.

All right.

Are you ready for the maiden voyage?

You have a name for it.

The Voyager.

OK, oh, I like it.

I like it.

All right.

The maiden voyage.

Let's remember what we have here.

You've got the left motor and the right motor.

They both spin in.

There you go and you've got that one.

What does that one do?

Goods up and down, right?

And then we've added what we've added buoyancy.

OK and float.

All right.

But not enough that it's going to make it stay at the surface, so you should be able to dive down And of course, you put the frame together that gives something to me so that it can go into the ocean and carry out tasks.

So we're going to let go.

I'm going to give you your tether holder.

Oh, look at that.

So I can use these to go backwards and forwards.

It's going forwards right now so that I'm going to come up, OK?

I turn it, you know, and these things.

Each one is balanced differently, so it takes a while to practice to get them, you know, to fly the way that you want them to.

And so the.

There are people that do this for a living in a real shipboard situation, you'd be sitting in a control room or something of the ship and you'd be flying this thing through a computer screen.

But of course, we want to see it actually move it.

It's more fun when you can do that, right?

So the Dauphin Island Sea lab is the marine research and education facility for the state of Alabama.

We were funded by the state to bring ocean literacy to students to learn new things about the ocean and importantly, to manage the ocean resources for Alabama in a wise way.

The sea lab really consists of three parts Discovery Hall.

Part is education and outreach part.

We have another unit called university programs that is undergraduate education and graduate education, but also research.

So those researchers are out there in the field learning new things every day.

And then we have the aquarium that brings those animals to the public, has a touch tank for stingrays.

Right now, it's got a shark in it.

So that's pretty cool.

And kids usually really love sharks and rays and octopus are also very popular among students, and they're fascinating creatures.

They're invertebrates.

They don't have any bones inside of them.

And so they can be escape artist and get out of the tank if we're not careful.

So you want to learn more about the ocean?

You're excited about that, right?

You've got to read stuff, you've got to visit, you've got to go out and be curious about that because unfortunately, we don't teach enough about the ocean in our classrooms and and that kind of stuff.

So go to Aquaria and visit and ask questions of the people that are taking care of those animals and learn more You know, now there's a lot of stuff online, a lot of really good material online here in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, we have a ship called the Oceanic Explorer that just goes out and explores the ocean because there's so much left to learn.

So be curious and follow your curiosity however it leads you.

Thanks for watching Alabama STEM explorers If you missed anything or you want to watch something again, you can check out our website at Alabama STEM Explorers dot org.

Maybe you have a question we could answer here on the show, and you might grab a cool T-shirt.

Feel free to send us a video question or an email on our website.

Alabama STEM Explorers dot org.

Thanks again for watching.

We'll be back next week.

Alabama's STEM explorers is made possible by the generous support of the Hudson Alpha Institute for Biotechnology, translating the power of genomics into real world results.

Southern Research solving the world's hardest problems the Holle Family Foundation established to honor the legacy of Brigadier General Everett Holley and his parents, Evelyn and Fred Holley, champions of servant leadership Alabama works a network of interconnected providers connecting business and industry needs to a highly skilled and trained workforce.

Alabama STEM Council dedicated to improving STEM education, career awareness and workforce development across Alabama.

Alabama Mathematics, Science, Technology and Engineering Coalition for Education advocating for exceptional STEM education in Alabama.

Alabama Math, Science and Technology Initiative, the Alabama Department of Education's initiative to improve math and science teaching statewide.