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Research Our Research Topic for Ocean Odyssey was Pearls and Perliculture!
We found that one of the major problems a pearl farmer faces is... When the danger is deep within the ocean either the farmers are not aware of it or they do not get enough time to respond and move their oysters. Our team solution was a system that alerts pearl farmers to the danger, evacuates the pearl farm, and provides a temporary safe environment to avoid a complete loss of the farm. The elements of our solution were... 1. The Health "B" Oyster - This robotic oyster was built with sensors to detect various factors of the Oceans health that would affect the health of a Pearl farm such as... - Salinity The Health "B" Oyster could communicate when these factors were unhealthy to the Pearl Farmer and the rest of the system. 2. Rescue Raft - The rescue raft is the raft that the actual pearl lantern baskets hang from. These baskets would be built with propellers to allow the rafts to be slowly transported to an area of refuge. 3. X-Bot 360 - This robot with its crane-like arm would sit near the area of refuge and transport the pearls to the safe area. The safe area is tanks filled with unpolluted ocean water. In our research we found that this water should be slowly cooled to allow the oysters to live a longer time outside their natural environment. We had many sources of our information including a complete manual of Pearl farming, various video sources, too many websites to list, books, but perhaps most valuable were the experts we contacted at the Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk, Soundwaters in Stamford, and other Connecticut experts who were able to share their expertise in Ocean science, research, and oyster biology. We learned a lot. We'll never look at a pearl the same way again! |
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