Imagine yourself exploring the ocean.
What do you see?
Perhaps you see yourself on a ship, sailing across the water,
or diving on a coral reef,
or analyzing data in a laboratory.
Maybe your imagination takes you to the most remote areas of the
sea, far from shore, and thousands of feet below the surface.
What are the tools that help you reach and study this distant environment?
Humans have been navigating and exploring our ocean for millennia, but in recent
decades, several tools have become hallmarks of modern ocean exploration,
like research vessels that provide mobile platforms for science and exploration
operations, sonar systems, that help us map the ocean floor in incredibly
fine detail, underwater vehicles that provide a first hand glimpse
at the wonders of the depths below,
and telepresence technology that brings real time exploration to the eyes and
ears of scientists and the public.
But even these relatively standard methodologies are continually evolving as
deep sea exploration technology improves.
Today, the breadth of activities that we that contribute to ocean exploration
is incredibly diverse, as are the tools that help us to accomplish it.
Over the last few decades, these technologies have advanced exponentially,
making ocean exploration more accessible, more efficient, and
more economical than ever before.
So to learn more, let's talk to an emerging ocean engineer, Jenna Enot.
Hi Jenna, we're really glad to have you joining us today.
Hi, I really appreciate you having me.
So Jenna, tell me a little bit about yourself.
What inspired you to study the ocean?
So, I, I think I've always been a fish.
Uh, I'm very fortunate, both my parents were scuba divers, and my dad
had me swimming before I could walk.
But I remember really vividly, I had the privilege to go on vacation to
Puerto Rico when I was five years old.
And I went snorkeling for the first time.
I remember putting on the mask and looking underwater and it was like a
whole new world I had no idea existed.
And as we're swimming along this reef, I remember we looked to our
right and saw a school of barracuda.
They turned and swam off into the distance.
And I remember thinking like, where are they going?
What else is out there for those barracudas to just disappear?
There's, there's so much more out there that we don't understand just yet.
So now.
You're actually an engineer who studies the ocean.
Can you tell me a little bit about your background and why
you specifically do what you do?
My studies were primarily mechanical engineering with a bunch of ocean sciences
and ocean dynamics tied into that.
There are plenty of disciplines inside of ocean engineering.
But where I'm most interested is in marine robotics and maritime technology.
To me, that means developing machines that allow us to access the ocean a little bit
better, or easier, to learn more about it.
The ocean is a very challenging environment.
Dealing with the pressure, dealing with the salt water,
which is corrosive to metal.
It can damage your electronics.
You typically don't think of water and electronics going together, but I like
the challenge that it brings of trying to create machines that go in the ocean.
And there's a lot of room for us to progress in that area.
Sounds like it requires some incredible creativity and innovation.
Were there any key experiences that you had that sort of
solidified your career direction?
I think one experience that was on an undergraduate robotics team, we were
working towards making an uncrewed surface vessel, so a USB, a robotic boat, with
relatively inexpensive parts, hobby robotics parts, and open source code.
And having that experience and that opportunity to make mistakes, to fail, to
burn up microcontrollers and short circuit your motors, And have it not be a huge
cost, I think was really important for me.
And it was meaningful to learn that you don't necessarily need years of experience
and a million dollars of startup funds to get into robotics and to make USBs.
We were making remote control boats and USBs out of insulation foam
that you could buy at the hardware store and plywood and tupperware
that you took from your kitchen.
You don't need too, too much to get into it.
You just have to start.
So, Jenna, ocean exploration, as we've mentioned, is becoming
cheaper, it's becoming faster, and more efficient than ever before.
Can you tell me a little bit about that?
Yes, absolutely.
I think it's fascinating.
We now have underwater technology and marine robots that can talk
to each other in a very similar way that we talk to each other.
They use sound to transmit information.
signals to another machine where instead of having ears, they have
something called an acoustic modem that interprets that signal and can use
that to communicate with each other.
I was fortunate enough to go out on the Explorer Vessel Nautilus this
past October for, 19 days at sea.
I was working with my lab and we have a Drix, which is an uncrewed
surface vessel, a robotic boat.
And with that on the surface of the water, we were using it to communicate with the
Mesobot, which is an underwater vehicle.
And with the two of those vessels, we were able to communicate back and
forth for the Drix telling the Mesobot where to travel in the water column
and the Mesobot verifying with Drix.
Okay.
I'm at that depth.
Uh, the Drix.
You can see it zipping out in front of the Nautilus now.
It is used for, uh, mapping or, as we did in October,
communicating with the Mesobot.
And that is used to study different animals, different biology,
the water particles within the Mesopelagic Zone, that middle region.
And I think one thing that is important about that animation is at the very end,
you can see the Nautilus begin mapping.
And it leaves the robots to occupy themselves.
And since we have the capability for them to operate autonomously, it allows
the mothership to continue exploring on its own, which essentially doubles
the surface that we're able to cover.
So we've
talked a little bit about efficiency, and we've talked a little bit
about advanced capabilities.
And today's innovative engineers are also making the ocean.
more accessible through the use of some of these tools.
Can you share an example of what that
means
to you?
Absolutely.
So in previous years, everyone that participated in ocean sciences
or on seagoing expeditions had to be on board, which is a very
physically demanding environment.
It's not necessarily the ideal scenario for many people, but with technology
today, We are able to collaborate with people all over the world.
So, on our most recent expedition in October, while we on the vessel
were over a hundred miles south of the Hawaiian Islands, we were able
to collaborate with co workers on the east coast of the United States.
With my co worker KG taking control of the Drix from New Hampshire and our colleague
Annette guiding the Mesobot operations from Woods Hole out of Massachusetts while
we were in the center of the Pacific Ocean and even while we were on the mothership,
the Drix was over 23 miles away.
And it allowed us to include in the conversation the people that couldn't
make it to sea for any circumstance, whether it's family or personal, they were
able to be a part of our mission, which I think is really, really invaluable.
It's incredibly invaluable and it's become so inclusive.
It's just, just fantastic.
So Jenna, what do you find most interesting about current
ocean exploration technologies?
There's such a wide variety of the ways that we can study the ocean.
And I am so frequently inspired by Even just the, the students and
the people that I'm surrounded by.
We can use satellites to detect the surface temperature of the
ocean on a huge spatial scale.
We are developing soft robotics so that ROVs, remotely operated vehicles,
can better collect biological samples from the bottom of the ocean.
There are just a million different little, uh, intricate pieces that go into the
larger umbrella of ocean technology.
Where do engineers get their inspiration for these?
I find a lot of inspiration in the technology that we're
capable of on land or in space.
We have maps of Mars and the moon, and we consider space to be our final frontier.
We don't have maps of our own ocean, necessarily.
This is the planet that we live on.
I think a lot about self driving cars, and there's a lot of
resources for developing them.
But there's not the same for the ocean, because, I mean, like my
thesis right now is working on obstacle detection for boats.
And with cars, it's really easy to collect a data set of car obstacles.
You drive around a city block and you see pedestrians and stoplights
and street signs, but collecting video of marine obstacles.
is a lot more difficult because you can't really drive around an ocean block.
It's, the ocean is vast.
It takes ages to, to collect a dataset like that.
I think we draw a lot of inspiration from nature, like animals, bats and
dolphins have been using echolocation for millennia longer than we have.
And we only in the past hundred years figured out how to use it to
measure the depth of the sea floor.
So I think if we turn to nature, we can get a lot of
inspiration from that as well.
And there's really no better way to sense your environment quite like animals do.
Nature knows best.
Switching gears just a little bit, Jenna, what
do you think are the most important topics for students and teachers
to know about when it comes to current ocean technologies?
I think what's most important to know is that there isn't one
correct way to ocean sciences.
There isn't one fast track highway to get you there.
I think what's beautiful about ocean sciences is that
there is a place for everyone.
That's a wonderful point,
Jenna.
So, given your experience so far in your lengthy career, What is
one big takeaway that you wish you knew as a younger person?
It took me a long time to be comfortable not knowing and not understanding.
There, there's no such thing as learning without failure.
And with those things that you don't know or don't understand, I
encourage you to be curious instead.
Jenna, those are beautiful words for us to end on.
Thank you for talking with us and for sharing your
expertise and your perspective.
I'm really excited to see what kind of amazing things you design
and accomplish as you continue in this cutting edge profession.
Thank you for having me.
Jenna, what keeps going through my head, and I don't even know if you know
this song, but every time people talk about barracudas, I just go, Barracuda!