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​BLOG BY GRACE C. YOUNG                                                                              
                                                                               


EXHIBIT OPENING SUCcESS

1/10/2015

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Many thanks to all those who attended the exhibit opening yesterday! Over 130 people attended, we had plenty of chocolate from Waggoner Chocolates, and I'd say it was a success! Getting plenty of positive feedback, but also looking forward to revising the exhibit slightly so that it can travel. Photos from Chris Welch Photography. Thanks again to everyone!

PHOTOS FROM THE OPENING!

PRESS

BEST OF OCEANS AT MIT/ Best of Oceans at MIT, Featured Stories
OCEANS AT MIT/ Slow-Motion Science and the Art of Capturing Marine Life
THE SCUTTLEFISH/ An Exhibit of Undersea Phenomena in Ultra-Slow Motion
DIVE INFO/ New MIT Exhibit Features High-Speed Underwater Photography
BOSTON.COM/ Art-Science Underwater Photography Exhibit Opening
BIG RED & SHINY/ Unique Slow-Motion Underwater Photography Exhibit 
@ARTSATMIT TWITTER/ Join @mitmeche alumna Grace Young this Friday
BOSTON ARTISTS BLOG/ Undersea Phenomena in Ultra-Slow Motion
SCOOP (REPOSTED) / Slow-Motion Science and the Art of Capturing Marine Life 
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Exhibit Opening THIS JANUARY!

12/9/2014

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I'm excited to announce the official date and time of the exhibit opening reception! See invitation card below. Those who contributed to the KickStarter will get invitations in the mail as well. 
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Event listed at Boston.com:  http://www.boston.com/entertainment/events?p1=menu_entertainment_more_events_hp#/event/3727057?location=02108-boston&sections=all&date=today

Reception Sponsors: 
The exhibit will be up through January 31st. It features photos and videos of marine animal behavior never before captured in slow motion. All filming was possible thanks to new technology, including the Edgertronic high speed camera, bright underwater lights, and an underwater housing. Most footage was captured during Fabien Cousteau’s Mission 31 last summer when five fellow aquanauts and I lived underwater and filmed with the camera for 15 days from the Aquarius underwater habitat off the Florida Keys. In addition, the exhibit showcases follow up studies on cuttlefish's color-changing skin and seal whisker dynamics.
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Note: The reception was previously planned for Sunday, January 4th, but is now on the 9th. The exhibit will still be open on the 4th, however, so if that's the only day you can attend just message me and I'll still give a tour. 

Finally, if you are a blog-reader who didn't hop on the KickStarter bus but still want to attend the opening, send me a message and I'll get you an invite :)) 

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(Waggoner Chocolates is catering!)
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MISSION 31 TED TALK

10/28/2014

 
Using cutting edge technology not really meant for the ocean was tricky! I'm the one filming upside down. It was easier to see the screen that way (and oddly comfortable underwater). Our photography will be featured in an art exhibit at MIT.
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PictureBringing the camera close to a mantis shrimp in the sand while filming with the Edgertronic camera.
"Thanks to a couple of engineers at MIT, we were able to use a prototype camera called the Edgertronic to capture slow-motion video... And that particular camera gives us an insight into what fairly common animals do but we can't even see it in the blink of an eye. ... It gives us an insight into some of the animals that we were sitting right next to for 31 days and never normally would have paid attention to, such as hermit crabs."

"Using a cutting-edge piece of technology that's not really meant for the oceans is not always easy. We sometimes had to put the camera upside down, cordon it back to the lab, and actually man the trigger from the lab itself. But what this gives us is the foresight to look at and analyze in scientific and engineering terms some of the most amazing behavior that the human eye just can't pick up, such as this manta shrimp trying to catch its prey, within about .3 seconds. That punch is as strong as a .22 caliber bullet, and if you ever try to catch a bullet in mid-flight with your eye, impossible. But now we can see things such as these Christmas tree worms pulling in and fanning out in a way that the eye just can't capture, or in this case, a fish throwing up grains of sand. This is an actual sailfin goby, and if you look at it in real time, it actually doesn't even show its fanning motion because it's so quick."



"What I learned from spending 31 days underwater" was the title of Fabien Cousteau's TED talk this month in Rio de Janeiro about Mission 31. My focus on the mission, high speed filming with the Edgertronic camera, is featured from 7:00-9:04. Click here to watch!  
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From the transcript:

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Fellow aquanaut Liz and I adjusting scientific equipment over a barrel sponge on the reef. 

Fabien summarizes the mission's goals and accomplishments, and stresses the need for further exploration of the oceans. 

For more info, check out my previous posts about working with the Edgertronic. 

AND, Photo Art EXHIBIT OPENING SOON!

I'm also excited to say my KickStarter campaign to fund an exhibit of the underwater slow motion photography we shot on the Edgertronic from Mission 31 was a great success! Those near Boston are welcome to attend the opening on the evening of January 4th in MIT's Wiesner Art Gallery. Just shoot me a message for the details. 

Update

9/18/2014

 
Thank you everybody! The KickStarter campaign was successfully funded! The exhibit will open January 4th in Cambridge, MA at the Wiesner Art Gallery, and the reception will be the night of the 9th. Excited! 

AN ART EXHIBIT OF UNDERSEA LIFE: KICKSTARTER

9/13/2014

 
I just launched a KickStarter campaign to help fund an exhibit of underwater high speed photography from Mission 31 and continued work. It'll be at the MIT Wiesner Art Gallery all of January if the campaign is successfully funded! 

Check it out (link here), and please consider attending the exhibit! 

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CAMERA HAND-OFF

7/23/2014

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This weekend I handed the Edgertronic high speed camera and it's underwater housing to MIT physics Professor Allan Adams, for him to use on his dive trip to Crete. We're skeptical about how much he can film with limited dive time, but it's worth trying to get some good footage! 
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STUNNING VIEWS OF LIFE IN THE SEA

6/29/2014

 
"We are seeing sea critters move on a whole new time scale." 

Capturing Ocean Life in Ultra Slow-Motion Video

What are currently doing on Mission 31? Here's a behind-the-scenes video diary of some of our work. We are using cutting edge technology to view ocean life like never before.  We need to be fully saturated to capture these images at this depth because of the length of time required for set-up and filming in the ocean.  Living at the same atmospheric pressure as the surrounding sea is a huge advantage that allows us to spend unlimited time working in the ocean. So, the research we're doing this month would take months or even years to accomplish with surface dives. That's one reason Mission 31 is so important and unique.
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It's tough getting the lighting just right. Looking for grouper. Working with Matt and Fabien.
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Filming critters from the window. We never rest in Aquarius! With Matt and Fabien.

Science Day & Night in Aquarius

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Capturing images of plankton at night with the Edgertronic camera with help of Matt (Changing Tides Media) and BackscatterUW.
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That's Liz and I capturing footage of bubbles with the Edgertronic camera.
Read more at:
  • The Underwater World Through Doc Edgerton's Eye's about this amazing camera and its capabilities.
  • Edgertronic High-Speed Camera Testing:  In May at MIT, I was working both on exams and the Edgertronic testing for Mission 31 at the same time!

UNDERWATER WORLD THROUGH DOC EDGERTON'S EYES

6/26/2014

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PictureDoc Edgerton's iconic milk drop coronet.
The Edgertronic high-speed camera we are using on Mission 31 has never been used underwater. It just came out five weeks ago, and the underwater housing that Sexton Corporation customized for us (for the camera) arrived the eve of Liz and my Aquarius splashdown. 

On land, MIT's "Doc" Edgerton revolutionized how we view motion. His iconic image of a milk drop, for example, shows the coronet-shaped structure formed the instant a drop hits liquid. It's fascinating that we “see” this seemly mundane phenomenon daily, yet its true majesty is never visible to the naked eye without the incredible speed of a camera to take images at fractions of a second. 

Back in the 1950s, Jacques Cousteau and Doc Edgerton ("Papa Flash," as Cousteau called him) were fast friends. Jacques was the intrepid explorer and Edgerton the MIT tech whiz who developed special technologies that helped locate, capture and convey the glory of Jacques’ underwater discoveries. Now in 2014, the 50th anniversary of Jacques Cousteau’s Conshelf II underwater habitat expidition, the legacies of these two great pioneers are united once again on Mission 31 to hopefully convey some of the wonders we're still discovering undersea by testing the limits of new underwater imaging technology. 

Our work with the Edgertronic camera on Mission 31 is capturing motion previously observed, but never fully visible, similar to the milk drop coronet phenomenon. Depending on the chosen resolution, this camera is capable of 500 frames per second at high resolution, and 18,000 (eighteen thousand!) frames per second at its lowest resolution. We're attempting to capture behaviors of undersea life with this incredible technology, and hope to ultimately capture the unique feeding behavior of the Goliath grouper (video not captured with Edgertronic).

The camera is tricky to use underwater. Adequate lighting is critical for the camera because the shutter is only open for fractions of a second, and good lighting is scarce to nonexistent undersea. In addition, setup takes about a half hour of sea time, and then another of hour of shooting time with someone providing computerized feedback from the dry habitat. (Liz wrote a blog post about the set-up process required.) We could really use more time!

The videos we are capturing are amazing. We are seeing the super-fast movements of sea creatures on a whole new time scale, movements that are impossible to comprehend with the naked eye. It’s mind-blowing to me to see nature working at this level. Several days ago I posted a short video of a yellow-headed jawfish and Liz posted a video of a manits shrimp striking a goby. Hopefully we'll post more in the coming days. Someday, I'd love to frame these images and put them with the videos in a museum: The Underwater World through Edgerton's Eyes.

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Jacques Cousteau and Doc Edgerton aboard Calypso, 1954.
The Edgertronic is capable of 18,000 (eighteen thousand!) frames per second at its lowest resolution. We're testing the limits of underwater imaging and reconnecting the legacies of Cousteau and Edgerton on this historic 2014 Mission 31.
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Fellow aquanaut Liz Magee from Northeastern's Three Seas Program with the Edgertronic camera as we work together to capture images of sea life. 
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Setting-up the Edgertronic camera. This image is from Matt Ferraro, a fellow aquanaut and filmmaker from Changing Tides Media with over 15 years of experience.  
Update 6/28/14: Here's a video from Mission 31 about our work with the camera underwater.
We also continue work on other of Mission 31 research projects, such as zooplankton collection and sea sponge identification and sampling for Northeastern's Ocean Genome Legacy project. 

More blog at: 
  • What's Mission 31 About? This is Worth the Watch and 
  • Stunning Views of  Life in the Sea, which shows some behind the scenes photos of setting up work with the Edgertronic camera. 
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AQUARIUS DAY 5: JAWFISH AND FRIENDS

6/20/2014

 
PictureYellow-headed jawfish
I'm so excited I can hardly sleep ... today was incredible! We did so many things. We collected samples of plankton from the traps that we left out overnight, swam with three plankton tows, filmed three scenes for the documentary, set up the nighttime plankton traps and then, the highlight of my day, spent a few hours in the water capturing the stunning behavior of sea creatures in slow-motion with the Edgertronic camera. This is the first time this ultra high-speed camera has been used underwater, and It's amazing what we're able to see through the lens of this camera. We're learning things about animals' behaviors we never knew before!

VIDEO OF THE DAY

Here's a sneak peak of the kind of footage we are capturing. This clip shows a yellow-headed jawfish popping out of it's den, and then spiting out a mouthful of sand. In real time, this happens in the blink of an eye, but today we filmed it at the high speed of 2,000 frames per second, so you can see details of the fish's movement. We've also filmed sail fish, crabs dancing (what are they doing?!), sergeant major, coral cups feeding, Christmas tree worms, and bubbles. Incredible! 

WAIT, WHY IS THE VIDEO IN BLACK AND WHITE?

We are filming with a monochrome camera because it's more light sensitive than it's color counterpart, and in high-speed photography in general (and underwater in particular) we are hard-pressed for light. Visible light just doesn't travel well underwater. However, Edgertronic loaned us a color camera, and it arrived today! Let's see if we can get it to work underwater! 

AQUARIUS VIEWPORT SWIM-BY

This was a great Google hangout today about coral reef health in the Caribbean Basin hosted by Northeastern University's Urban Coastal Sustainability Initiative. Fabien, Liz and i were conducting research outside and "dropped by" to say hello in the Aquarius viewport. "You never know who's going to swim-by the viewport when you're in Aquarius," said Mark Patterson.
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A swim-by the Aquarius viewport during a coral reef discussion are Fabien, a yellowfish, Liz and me.

WOMEN IN SCIENCE

I also posted this great video, Aquanauts Switch Mid-Mission from the Mission 31 production team showing Liz, Matt and I trading places with Adam, Andy and Kip to become fully- saturated aquanuts on the mission four days ago! 

AQUARIUS DAY 4: SCIENCE AND BALLET ART UNDERSEA

6/20/2014

 
LIVING ON THE EDGE-RTRONIC  *Clever title courtesy Liz Magee

THE ARTS AT AQUARIUS, UNDERWATER BALLET

PictureClick on image to link to the draft video.
With the Edgertronic ultra high-speed camera, we can see things that happen in the blink of an eye in slow motion. It's like seeing the world at a different time-warp. It lets us see the underwater world, and it's creatures, a whole new way. Today we spend 6 hours total in the water, and we focused on exploring with the Edgertronic camera. We captured some stunning footage. Here's a video of bubbles coming from Liz's helmet, captured at 1000 frames per second. 

It's just amazing what you can discover, spending six hours in the water! Who knew bubbles moved so strangely like that? We also captured many videos of sea life, including coral cups feeding, crabs dancing (what are they doing?!), a sergeant major fanning it's eggs, and even a little zooplankton narrowly avoiding being eaten by a coral polyp. The other videos need some post-processing, but I'll distribute as soon as they're out.  (And I'll post this video in a more accessible format when the internet is stronger tomorrow.)

While Fabien and Ryan re-configured the camera for us inside the habitat, we had some time to play in the water. Here I'm performing some ballet (a grand pas de chat).  Matt (second photo) did a handstand. 

Fellow aquanaut Matt Ferraro, a filmmaker with over 15 years in film production, has some more great footage of us working today, but you'll have to wait for that to come out in the documentary film!  
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Apparently, can't stop dancing. Still a ballerina at heart! Fabien snapped this pic, an arabesque, as I was grabbing something from the top shelf in Aquarius today.
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Mission 31 ballet: grand pas de chat undersea
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Matt doing a handstand undersea
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Ballet (grand pas de chat) on land, and now sea! Art and science collide on Mission 31.

Congrats! DAY 20, LONGEST AQUARIUS MISSION

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Congrats on Day 20! The longest mission at Aquarius (to date)! with Fabien, Otter and Ryan. Historic Mission 31 days, here we come!
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Either I'm still on college time, or Pres. Rief is right, MIT grads are nocturnal when chasing new ideas:) The work here is exciting & exhausting. It's a great team all working together for our oceans.

G'NIGHT FOR NOW ...

I wish I had time to process (and finish downloading) the footage now to post, but I need to sleep. Tomorrow is another early morning dive. We'll spend most of the day collecting plankton samples, identifying sponges for the Ocean Genome Project, and welcoming former aquanauts Mark Patterson and Steven Price back into Aquarius. 
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From Liz Magee: "GIANT grouper at our viewport last night saying hello!" Did you know that Goliath Grouper can weigh up to 800 lbs and be 9 ft long!

AQUARIUS DAY 2: MANY HOURS IN THE SEA

6/18/2014

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PictureView from the bunk viewport! Credit Liz.
What a day! We came in from our last dive not too long ago (been in the ocean for many hours today researching!), had dinner, prepared tomorrow's dive plan, and now we need to sleep! I'll post a lengthier update when I can.  Meanwhile, here's a video we recorded today with the Edgertronic camera. It shows a Christmas tree worm (Spirobranchus giganteus) closing at 1500 frames per second. The camera is inside a housing from The Sexton Corporation that so far is working beautifully.  

I also posted:  What's Mission 31 About? This is Worth the Watch today. 

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Working late undersea in Aquarius.
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AQUARIUS DAY 1: ARRIVED & WORKING UNDERSEA

6/18/2014

 
It's daunting trying to write and comprehend everything that's happened today. Arrived, Alive and Well Underwater is below. It's almost unreal. I've imagined today, descending to Aquarius as a home underwater, over and over, and -- after training and hearing of other's experiences, I imagined it pretty much exactly as it was. Nothing was much of a surprise, except for maybe the slight butterflies in my stomach. In the image left, I had just made my bunk and was viewing fish from the viewport. A shark swam by right after I snapped this photo. 
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I'm with great company underwater.

EARLY MORNING

I woke up at 5:30am to organize gear going down to Aquarius, both my personal items and research equipment, and put together all the things that will stay at mission headquarters. It was a night of little sleep. Last night I was up late with the Edgertronic high speed camera we'll use for research. The underwater housing for the camera, from the Sexton Corporation, arrived yesterday and in the day's chaos I didn't have a chance to play with it until after dinner in the Aquarius habitat. 
Unwrapping the camera housing felt like unwrapping a birthday gift. Billy, Brian, and Mike from our production team stayed up with me to gawk over the camera and housing. It's really a special piece of equipment. Doc Edgerton from MIT was with Jacques Cousteau on Calypso in 1954, and now as an MIT alum, I'm in Aquarius using Edgertronic with Fabien Cousteau in 2014! Lot's of history being made here.

Before sending it underwater, I wanted to make sure, once again, that I understand the ins-and-outs of the Edgertronic camera and housing. Fortunately Sexton, the maker of the the underwater casing, thoroughly tested the case for us, and made everything as user-friendly as possible.
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The production team and I gawking over the Edgertronic in its underwater casing that just arrived last night!
 Just to be sure, I inspected the case for any possible damages from shipping. I had packed supplies for greasing the o-ring seals on the case. In addition, the housing had to be disassembled prior to being loaded into the pressurization pods down to Aquarius because otherwise I wouldn't be able to open the housing inside Aquarius; the air pockets inside would have remained at 1 atmosphere, while the outside of the case would be at Aquarius's 2.5 atmospheres.  (This is also one of the big differences between being in a submarine, which generally remains at a regular atmospheric pressure, and Aquarius, currently the world's only undersea research lab, where we've saturated to the surrounding ocean's pressure and therefore can spend extended time outside the habitat conducting ocean research.) 

BON VOYAGE!

Northeastern Professors Mark Patterson and Brian Helmuth, both former aquanauts, and their graduate students joined us yesterday for dinner, and this morning they waved us "bon voyage" from the dock at 7:30AM. They'll be in the water with us, conducting research via surface dives (about 45 minutes to avoid need to decompress), for the remainder of the mission. In addition, we're in regular communication about research procedures and goals. Liz and I enjoyed the wind and sun on the boat ride out to our new home.  
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Bon Voyage! Headed undersea.

AQUANAUTS SEE THE SUN ... NO TURNING BACK

Adam was the first to resurface. He arrived with arms open, in the victory pose. I can't imagine what it must be like to finally feel the sun and breath air from an endless sky after over two weeks. I'll know what that's like soon enough, however. We gave all the returning aquanauts (i.e., Adam, Andy, and Kip) hugs as they boarded the boat, ready to make the journey back to shore. I asked them humorously, "Guys, should we really do this, or turn back now?" Without hesitation, they all said Aquarius is worth it. Go! There's nothing like what we're about to do. 
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Andy, Kip & Adam said Aquarius was worth it. Here we go!

TRADING SPACES & WORKING UNDERWATER

As I'm writing this, I'm sitting at the Aquarius kitchen table. Dozens of fish swim by the window at by my side. It's unreal, like one of those visually-addicting screen savers. I'm torn between just watching them, and reflecting on the day. Briefly, today was busy; after getting situated in Aquarius, we made our dive plan then executed a 3.5 hour saturation dive setting up plankton traps, finding sponges, and observing fish. Northeastern divers met us in the water this afternoon to deliver some equipment. Specifically, we deployed a dozen plankton traps for Amanda's zooplankton research, and carefully recorded each location. We also collected the last of the environmental contamination sensors, and attempted to use a CTD cast (more about that later... when it's working). Finally, in our dive helmets we joined Fabien (from inside the habitat) on a Skype call with Northeastern University. How cool is that?! That's the longest dive I've ever done. Tomorrow I'll discuss more details on the research. 

After the long dive, I worked with our resident expert photographer Matt on the Edgertronic camera.
See the difference the Edgertronic high-speed camera can make!  Water drops I filmed with the camera.
Water drop I filmed with regular video from my iPhone at MIT's Edgerton Center in May. 
Fish filmed through Aquarius viewport, 500 frames per second. We haven't perfected the graininess (ISO setting) or focus yet, but that's coming with underwater tests. 
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I made this diagram of the high-speed Edgertronic video camera with the specially-made waterproof casing.


Goodnight, but first... 

Here's a fun fact. Three of the six aquanauts in Aquarius right now are left-handed! That's statistically pretty crazy. Guess who... 

MY UNDERSEA GRADUATION  (MISSION DAY 6)

6/5/2014

 
Today I  graduated from MIT! I'm incredibly grateful for the many, many people who helped me get to this point. Since I didn't graduate from high school, this is was my first degree (B.Sc. in Mechanical and Ocean Engineering). Even though I missed the ceremony, I followed along the live feed and flipped the "brass rat" class ring with the rest of my classmates. 
Someone put a model of Doc Edgerton's iconic milk drop image on their cap at commencement. I've been working with the MIT Edgerton Center (blog post here) to use their remarkable high-speed camera for Mission 31. With this camera, we'll try to capture Goliath Grouper's unique feeding behavior, hoping to validate an unproven theory that they use the sound of a collapsing cavitation bubble formed in their head as a weapon to stun prey. We should produce some amazing footage if all works. We tested the Edgertronic camera by filming the M31 German Shepherd mascot "feeding" on milk  (video here). Doc Edgerton also worked with Jacques Cousteau.

The commencement speeches were inspiring, such as MIT President's Reif's charge below:
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I flipped my "brass rat" class ring undersea at approximately the same time as my classmates at commencement today. (Photo Nokia Lumia 1020)
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Graduation hat with Doc Edgerton's iconic milk drop image. Credit to @ctempesta
"Whatever road you choose to travel, I want you to reject the idea that what you see in front of you is the best that we human beings can do. I want you to see the status quo as nothing more than ... a place to start, because you know we can do better. ... More daring and more passionate. More rigorous, playful, and ambitious. More humble, more respectful, more generous, and more kind." -- from MIT President Reif's commencement charge to graduates today
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The best graduation gift: The aquanauts in Aquarius put a special graduation message inside the habitat visible on the live feed camera (top right). Thanks guys :)
One of my favorite quotes: 
Do something you're not ready to do. In the worst case, you'll learn your limitations. -- Marissa Mayer
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I'll always remember freshman year when my physics professor said one of his students gave him his Nobel Prize to thank him for his mentorship. He then rummaged around his top desk drawer and among pencils and paper clips, he pulled out the medal and handed it to me! It was heavy! I was awestruck and took a picture of the medal on top of my physics problem set due the next day.
Right now I'm excited for ...
  • World Oceans Day, which is Sunday
  • The Edgertronic high-speed camera arriving with its new waterproof housing from Sexton Corporation next week (Doc Edgerton)
  • Ian Sommerhalder visiting tomorrow (Ian's foundation)
  • Dinner with Sylvia Earle and Jean-Michel Cousteau (tonight!)

Read more Grace Under Pressure at Aquarius Day 4: Science and Ballet Arts Undersea. 

TRAINING DAY 4: WELCOME TO AQUARIUS!

5/22/2014

 
We dove in the Kirby Morgan helmets again today, but this time down to Aquarius! It was my first time to the undersea habitat, my future home, and it was surreal. I felt like a fish finding the toy castle in the fish bowl. 

Even though I'd viewed plenty of photos of the habitat before the trip, seeing the structure appear out of the blue (literally) and swimming alongside it was nothing like I could've imagined. Underwater for the last 21 years, it's a living reef, covered in corals, soft sponges, and other marine life. Fish swam everywhere, accustomed to divers' presence. We saw a goliath grouper, tarpon, snook, a sea cucumber, and many more marine creatures. 

Today Aquarius staff were installing equipment (including the microwave!) inside the habitat. I waved at them and they waved back through a port window. Other divers were outside cleaning the sides of the habitat. Two Bonnet Rouge cameramen joined us. 
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It really does look like this! The Aquarius undersea habitat. Photo credit to NOAA.
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Swimming up to Aquarius for the first time, I felt like a fish finding the castle in the fishbowl.
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It takes a team to put this suit on! Thanks to Liz (right) and Navy diver Hunter for helping. Photo credit to F. Cousteau.
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About to head into the water. It looks like I've a mustache, but that's just the nose clearing device. Photo credit to F. Cousteau.
Back on the dive boat, the aquanauts took turns operating the air supply box and talking with the diver in the water over the communications line. I really enjoyed being on the radio; it's fun to hear divers describe what they are seeing. 

Our gear from Oceanic arrived yesterday screen printed with the Mission 31 logo, so today we all wore matching fins, wetsuits, and booties. We looked like a team! More photos of the team gear to come. Also, more videos to come! Back at the house, the Bonnet Rouge team continued to edit footage from today. 
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That's me! Descending to Aquarius. Caught on film by the Bonnet Rouge crew.
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Matt editing footage from today. That's me on screen! There's much more amazing footage yet to come from the Bonnet Rouge team.
Here's a quick clip of my descent to Aquarius (with director's commentary), filmed by the Bonnet Rouge crew on the RED camera. The team is still hard at work editing footage from today.
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More high speed video tests

I've also uploaded a video (below) that we took yesterday with the Edgertronic high-speed camera. Sam, our Mission 31 mascot, proved a fascinating subject. We filmed her lapping up milk in the video below,at 700 frames per second. Who knew dogs tongues worked that way? Only after watching the video did I realize that their tongues curl backwards, forming a ladle shape when lapping up milk! 
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Stills from Edgertronic high-speed camera footage of Sam, the Mission 31 mascot, lapping up milk. These were taken with a 50mm Nikon lens at 700 frames per second and a shutter speed of 1/1400 seconds.

Right now the plan is to tether the camera (via it's underwater housing) to the habitat for power and ethernet connection. But it's also possible to power the camera with batteries inside the case, and maybe connect the camera to a small screen inside the housing. I saw Eric Cheng do essentially this with an iPad and wireless router. I wonder if I could plug the camera's Ethernet into a Nokia smart phone via an adapter that went to the phone's miniUSB.
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The scene: Sam in front of the Edgertronic.
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From left to right, Sam, Matt, Billy, and me filming a scene with our mascot Sam on the Edgertronic. Photo credit to Carrie Vonderhaar.
Tomorrow we'll dive back to Aquarius in the helmets and take a peak inside the habitat. After this week we should all be comfortable in the helmets and know what to do in the unlikely event that something goes wrong. I'm also working on adjusting the weights I use to dive in this gear. When diving you need extra weights to overcome your body's neutrally buoyant to reach the bottom. Fine-tuning how much weight to add is mostly a trial-and-error process. Today, to compensate for the 5mm wetsuit and new gear, I added 10-lb weights and sunk like a rock. Tomorrow I'll try 6 lbs. I can't wait to spend more time around the habitat. 

I'm exhausted.  Good night -- off to bed.

EDGERTRONIC HIGH-SPEED CAMERA TESTING

5/16/2014

 
At the MIT Edgerton Center, Jim Bales, Kyle Hounsell and I tested the Edgertronic high-speed camera again. My goal was to become as comfortable with the camera as possible on-land before taking it underwater. It was my last chance to meet with the Edgerton Center experts again before heading to Mission 31 training this weekend! Also, an MIT videographer, John Freidah, filmed us working for a video he's doing on the Mission. We captured some beautiful footage of a candle flickering and water droplet, the kind of subjects "Doc" Edgerton recorded. One reason we're so excited about the Edgerton-Mission 31 connection is that Doc Edgerton worked closely with Jacques Cousteau on underwater photography. I'm still working on the underwater video camera casing for Mission 31.
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Working in the MIT Edgerton Center with Kyle. We used the Edgertronic high-speed camera, in the lower right, to get the images and videos below. The room was dark except for a bright spotlight on the subjects. The images we captured are black and white. We chose the monochrome model of Edgertronic because it's more sensitive to light than the color camera and will therefore be better suited for underwater filming, where light is scarce.
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Candle flicker image we captured with Edgertronic today. See the full video below from both the Edgertronic and a standard camera (for comparison).
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Water drop image from Edgertronic camera today.
Check out how different the phenomenon looks filmed with a standard camera below compared to the Edgertronic videos above. 

EDGERTRONIC HIGH-SPEED CAMERA ARRIVED

5/11/2014

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Yesterday the Edgertronic camera arrived at the MIT Edgerton Center. We aim to use the camera underwater during Mission 31 to catch grouper fish feeding behavior. It will certainly be a challenge using the camera underwater. More updates on that later. Yesterday we were able to catch a balloon popping in slow-motion with the camera at MIT (see video at right). 
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    Grace Young  (B.S., MIT, Ph.D, Oxford) is an ocean engineer, aquanaut, and explorer currently working at X. She lived underwater as a scientist and engineer on Fabian Cousteau’s Mission 31, and is a National Geographic Explorer. 

    Blog Highlights: 
    1. No Engineer is an Island
    2. Mission 31 Highlights
    3. Sailing Across the Atlantic 
    ​3. Return to CERN

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