Above and Below the Waves in Malta

This Monday I had the good fortune to get a last minute ticket to Malta to join Mission 31 dive master Billy Snook on an epic adventure with U-Boat Worx. The company makes ultra-luxurious personal submarines. Billy and I will be SCUBA diving alongside the submarines making a marketing video for the company. It's fun diving with someone you've spent a lot of time in the water with because you know how to communicate with each other. It's also great to be back the water! My last dive since Mission 31 was with Boston in friend Max Jamilly, who's currently a dive instructor in Indonesia. 

Check out this storybook from the first two days of the trip, "In Malta on a Submarine":
https://steller.co/stories/382560750733887168

And from the rest of the trip, 
"Above and Below the Waves in Malta"
https://steller.co/stories/391163227385366233

Their subs are designed to be launched off private yachts. Credit Dick Holthuis.

While onboard the ship here in Malta I got to virtually meet an all-girls robotics team (the "Gear Gals") back at my high school. These girls have got it going on! Check out their website.

Last week I had the pleasure of connecting with Joe Grabowski's 8th Grade Science & Technology class in Canada. You can read more about our chat on their blog.

Earlier this month students in Costa Rica asked about living underwater and becoming ocean engineers. They've an incredible ocean-awareness curriculum spearheaded by their teacher, Nacho Esquivel. More info. 

View of Port Of Valletta, Malta :) Took this picture with my iPhone (!)

Outreach  

#MITAlum twitter chat coming up 

Next Tuesday (November 18) at noon EST follow and Tweet to the hashtag #MITAlum to join a Twitter chat with me and fellow MIT alum and Mission 31 coordinator Saul Rosser.

The last Twitter chat with #MITAlum was about space exploration. Read more about it here. 

UPDATE:  You can view a summary of the chat at http://oceans.mit.edu/featured-stories/aquanaut-grace-young-lived-undersea-15-days-cousteaus-mission-31-live-qa! 

Got 12 MINUTeS? Watch steve's Inspiring talk

One of the graduate students who worked in Neri Oxman's lab with me last spring stayed awake while doctors removed a baseball-sized tumor from his brain. He's an absolutely incredible human being, to say the least. He shared his story in the talk at right. It's well worth watching.