Once again SCINI is the star of the show. Today Stacy, Bob, and SCINI were on a webcast for the Exploratorium. The Exploratorium is a museum in San Francisco that believes that a museum should be a learning experience. They set up filming in a small building that is usually used to observe seals.
The hut may be small but it has a lovely view.
If you would like to view the webcast go to the Explo.tv section of http://www.Exploratorium.com and watch "Ocean Ecology". You can also check out the other webcasts that are being done with scientists working in Antarctica.
After the webcast Bob and I began some much needed work on SARA. For those of you that don't know, SARA is the ROV that my students built. She was slightly damaged during the journey to Antarctica. In addition, there were a few things that Bob, the engineer, suggested we do to SARA to improve her functioning.
I first examined SARA to see just what was damaged. One of the struts had broken free of its plastic tie and I quickly reattached it with a neon yellow plastic tie that went lovely with SARA's color scheme. The next thing I noticed was that the piece of Plexiglas that we had attached two of the thrusters to was cracked.
I cut off the plastic ties that attached the Plexiglas to the frame and then I also cut the plastic ties that attached the two thrusters. Bob had a great idea to connect the two thrusters directly to the frame using plastic ties. One would have the valve go up and the other would have the valve go down. These thrusters obviously control down and up.
Then I stripped all of the cables. Each cable had a black wire and a brown wire and I then had to strip each wire. I now understand why Dajon said it was a difficult job. I had to go slowly or I would cut through the wire.
The next step was to twist all of the black wires together and then to twist one wire from the ground wire to each of the brown wires. Bob then taught me to solder. This is where you melt metal (tin and lead) onto metal using a hot rod. It is harder than it sounds but I had a lot of fun.
Bob gave me little plastic sleeves to put on the end of each soldered wire. I then used a hair dryer to heat shrink the plastic sleeve. This will protect the soldered wire.
The next thing I did was to put a plastic tie around the wires and put them in the gray container that looks like a gun.
We then used the sealant foam that I had brought form school which is aptly called "Great Stuff - Insulating Foam Sealant". This stuff will make the wires waterproof.
You spray the foam and it expands by 50%. We also put the foam in the floats to seal them as well. We had a hard time judging when we had filled the container half full. It spilled out of the ends and kept spilling out. We decided to leave it until tomorrow.
In the meantime, we started to work on the control box. I should explain that what SARA needed was to have the two thrusters reattached, the floats waterproofed, and the wires soldered and then waterproofed. Bob offered to help give SARA a bit of a facelift. Who could say no to some free help from a real electronics expert and the price was right (free).
We organized the switches on the control box top and then flipped it over and began to connect the switches. This involved more soldering. I am getting to be a real solder expert.
After we had connected the six switches to each other, it was time to solder a wire from the grounding cable to each switch. We made sure to match the wire to the thruster to the switch.
The final result was a control box that was able to control all six thrusters. Bob then gave SARA a lovely cable that would easily connect her to the power source. He also recommended putting the hole in the control box on the side instead of the bottom where we had put it. This would allow us to put the box on the ground and work with it.
While Bob and I worked on SARA, Stacy and Scott were busy packing up the lab. It is quite a job.
They use lots of different containers to ship items back home. They also box up some items and leave them in Antarctica for next year.
All day long Scott worked with a bit of a disadvantage because he had lost his voice. I had a little fun trying to make him talk or at least laugh. He was a really good sport about it and it made the day go a little faster.
It was a very busy day and tomorrow promises to be just as busy. It's hard to believe that in just a matter of days I will be leaving this incredible place. Luckily, I am staying so busy that I haven't had a chance to get sad. I'll save that for the long plane ride to New Zealand.
