This week I sent a survey to our FB fans to see what they like about our page, what they would like to see more etc. The result of this survey will help use guide future social media strategies. Interestingly, we all thought posting a link to the survey on our timeline wouldn't work and we decided to send individual private message to each fan. I spent hours copying and pasting this message and Facebook was suspecting me to be a spammer... Unfortunately no one replied to the survey so we decided to try to put it on our timeline and BAM in less than a day, 20 replies! So next week I will start looking at the answers (exciting). We also started to try to engage more people by (among other things) inviting people to ask their question related to our post. We tested it yesterday with the deployment of the power buoy and we have comments and questions!
I also work on a special event concerning the Open house but I don't say anything here... wait 10.00 o'clock and check our facebook page...

I am also looking at ways to be more visible on Twitter... and I spend some time replying to all the comments we have on our Youtube channel.

So of course it is difficult to see if our efforts are paying now, we need to wait longer and then take a close look at our metrics.

Anyway, it is exciting! I am having a blast (or hella fun)

End of week three! Time sure flies when you're having fun!

Work-wise I had another productive week. It started off with another victory over MATLAB... I had spent half of thursday and half of friday banging my head against the keyboard over what I thought was a projection issue when I was converting ASCII files to ARC GRID files. Monday I went back to the asciiwrite MATLAB code and broke it down to find the problem. The script was rounding my latitudes to 3 decimal places, which was too course for my 0.0125 degree grid. So MATLAB was compressing my outputs by half a degree latitudinally, which offset my GRID alignment with the CA coast by 30km. Since that problem has been fixed I've converted 1100 (and counting) daily sea surface temperature observations into a functional GRID format in ArcMap! I love having computers do all the work for me!

This has given me time to consider project goals moving forward. Using statistics in ArcMap, I can derive a method for longterm monitoring of seasonal oceanographic conditions within California's MPA network. I am also beginning to compile information to create a portal for seafloor multibeam bathymetry on CeNCOOS.

 Outside of work, this week at MBARI has been kind of low-key. Our cookie break was a great success! Michael's meticulous chocolate chip cookies earned us a tie for second (which we achieved only by the very last vote!). I rode my bike with Justin, Brandon, and Diane to/from work a couple times this week. And I'm thinking about trying yoga for the first time ever today at lunch.

However, this whole week I have been in anticipation of moving my wife up to Marina from Southern California! This weekend will end almost 2 years of living separately and I couldn't be happier!

It's fun that we can all see the work Geraldine is doing as she goes along! I even liked the MBARI facebook page... Big step.
In terms of my own work, I've learned/re-learned quite a bit about the principles behind the laser I'm using. My mentor found me a book that's a good refresher on the topic and I've also been working with Peter Walz to figure out an issue we've been having with the signal changing, which has involved taking apart the instrument to clean it. A little frustrating not knowing what the problem is (we still haven't quite solved it), but really cool to see how everything works and do some more hands-on stuff.

Despite the issues with the laser, I have still managed to get good, usable data on CO2 dissolution in seawater... once I've finished processing it, we'll have a better idea of the sensitivity of the laser and how to move forward with plans for future experiments on cruises.

I've been considering setting up an Endnote file with all the references to papers I've read, just to keep track of them. Has anyone else done this?

Anna, I use Mendeley to store all my papers, you can create folders and it is super easy afterward to write your bibliography (which is always a pain!!). Mendeley provides a desktop application that quickly became essential for me!

Yes, with MyEndNote Web at least I go to "Format" "Bibliography". You can also create separate folders for your references and then select that folder to create your list using the format bibliography option.

I've been using Mendeley for the last year and its great for organizing and querying my references. Having the ability to access my references through the cloud is really helpful too. However, the create bibliography function is VERY clunky. I still just create my own citations and bibliography. It may be a bit time consuming, but if you want it done right you gotta do it yourself. Is EndNote free?

This week has been good for my project productivity.  I have enjoyed the multitude of scheduled intern opportunities we have been offered, but I have had much more time this week to work with my mentor and engage my project more fully.  That being said, I am not exactly where I want to be with it, but my mentor and I are on the same page with where things are.  One of my favorite distractions this week has been stopping to talk to whoever is throwing a piece of equipment into the Test Tank.  I have also enjoyed reading about all the different kinds of optical sensors for phyto and zooplankton detection, particularly in the Jaffe lab at Scripps.  I'd like to think it's important to know about the functions and features of what exists, as part of my project is to assess what combination of channels on the LISST sensor on our AUVs can detect what kinds of plankton are in a bloom or patch.  

 In other news this week, I updated my intern page and read some of the others, it's cool to learn about everyone's background.  I also want to write a post for our intern blog, and would like to encourage everyone to post something about their work/life as an intern at MBARI.  I am familiar with the MLML student blog, and as I understand it the MBARI intern blog works much the same way.  Still, see Erica for more information.

Que mas...I biked to work for the first time, and got a climbing gym membership.  Maybe I can strike a balance between my daily cookie obsession and maintaining a reasonable level of physical activity.  Maybe.

This week revolved around our deployment of the PowerBuoy. Monday was spent bringing the whole system out on the dock and getting it in the water and on the boat. That proved to be quite the mission, since it is so heavy and in 3 pieces. With careful crane work everything went according to plan. Unfortunately I missed out on the cookie break because we worked right through it. Tuesday we went out to sea for deployment. We left at 6 AM, before the winds picked up. Because the weather was so nice, everything went flawlessly. The Powerbuoy is now 5 miles out in the ocean, generating electricity and collecting data. What is new in the deployment this time is the batteries which collect the power being generated. Before electricity was just generated for proof of concept and then dissipated into heat. Storing the electricity in batteries proves difficult because of the range of voltages produced corresponds to the size and power of the waves, which is continually changing, whereas the voltage potential of the batteries is constant. Also the Buoy has an anchor now, which is new too. Yesterday and today I'm working on the pop-up buoys retrieved last week. Each one has been tested and is functioning (video on facebook, thanks Dongsik); however alteration will have to be made to allow for stronger, thicker rope to be used. That should keep me busy.

This week I took a little detour from my main project of mapping the CO2 data from the wave glider. I have been working with Jules Friederich in our lab to start the development of a dual pH and DIC analyzer. This involves integrating a separate pH system to the existing DIC analyzer in our lab. Although I know nothing about engineering, Jules was very helpful in explaining what was going on and showing me how things were done. I was very fascinated by how he knew exactly how to wire together circuit boards and fit together parts to make a working device. We haven't integrated a pH electrode to the system yet, but we have now connected together an 8-sample selection valve, a diaphragm pump, and a thermistor. The coolest part was getting to learn and play around with Agilent VEE (similar to LabView), a program used for programming instruments. Knowing a bit of Matlab helped me to understand how programming works in general, and by the end of yesterday, I was able to write a primitive program for a sampling routine--turning the selection valve to each of the eight samples, turning on the pump to draw sample, recording temperature while sample is being drawn, and then turning off the pump and temperature logging during the transition to the next sample. I was very excited when my program actually made the device move. Having no prior engineering experience, the fact that my computer code actually produced an effect on physical reality was amazing to me.

I'm not sure if this side project will be integrated into my main project and my results to be presented, but I definitely want to do more instrument programming in VEE.

I've made some decent advancements this week. I finished re-mapping the digital I/Os in the load switcher's code, which was an important first step. I also looked at the initialization routines for the microcontroller's other peripherals, such as the SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface) and UART (Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter). I remapped the re-programmable pins associated with those modules, so that they would be functional again. I was able to verify the functionality of the UART by successfully communicating with the board using my PC's RS-232 connection and HyperTerminal.

Verifying the functionality of the SPI has been a bit more challenging. First of all, I should mention that there are two different SPI modules being used on this system. SPI1 is being used by the LV board (slave) to communicate to the CPU board (master). SPI2 is being used to communicate with the board's various peripherals (I/O expander, digital pots, ADCs). First, I wanted to take a look at the SPI1 module, since I would like to use the CPU board as a debugger of sorts for the LV board. This is where problems arose.

As was tested earlier, the CPU board is perfectly able to scan the slots and recognize the environmental board when it is plugged in to the backplane. However, when I have the LV board plugged in, the CPU doesn't recognize it. The logical explanation would be that there is a code issue on the LV board (although I did my best to change the code to accommodate different pinouts etc.). The weird thing, though, is that when both the LV board and environmental board are plugged in, the CPU recognizes NEITHER of them. It just reads all of the slots as empty.

I want to plug in a second functioning board to see if I can narrow down the problem to either being Roland's CPU code, or my LV board code (Roland is the name of the programmer who worked on this project before me). I also would like my mentor to take a look at the hardware, since that is his specialty. If the issue is code, then I may need to call on a more experienced embedded programmer to help me figure out what's wrong. Perhaps I can contact Roland directly to help me resolve the problem. For now, I'm pretty much just staring at it blankly, hoping for some kind of revelation. You know, the usual when it comes to programming.

Other than that, the week has been pretty decent. Cookie break was a ton of fun. I also had a blast with Erica up in Santa Cruz last weekend. I look forward to planning the intern BBQ and exchanging recipes.

This week has been mostly reading up on various topics related to WIG aircraft. The focus has been on airfoil and propulsion systems.  I've assembled a crude mass budget to begin an initial iteration for required power and lift.  I've also been able to find several scaling charts that suggest a reasonable required power plant for the craft in takeoff (max power stage for WIG craft).  I also began preliminary calculations on a compressed air buoyancy system for the water to air transition. I'm still working on determining the optimal thrust mechanism (likely a ducted fan or exposed propeller). For wing design I'm still trying to find some data for blended body craft in the ground effect, especially with regards to pitch stability.

Anna,

I've used endnote before and its one of the best bibliography programs I've used that interfaces directly with MS Word. I think the new version even lets you annotate the referenced pdfs directly in the program. That said Word gets pretty screwy with references and cross-references... I would highly recommend learning latex if you are creating a long document! There are a bunch of bibliography management programs available that generate the required bibtex format to interface with latex. There is a bit of a learning curve but definitely worth learning.

Alright, so this week has been intense for me and my project. After much deliberation and processing of videos/images with Danelle, I FINALLY got ome data that I can analyze and prepare for the actual experiment. I must say, there are a lot of steps in the development of my project. So the data that I got to look at this week was of the Nanomia stationary recordings, very easy to identify those things so those were cake. The challenging part came with the LISST-HOLO images of plankton. Those things are hard to identify, and that's been exactly what I've been doing the last 3 days. But in doing so, I've found kinks that could come with the actual experiment, which is better to know now than later. Definitely killed my eyes on Tuesday though... Don't know how the people in the video lab do this day in and day out. Guess you just get used to it.
Today we actually added another feature to the overall experiment. First, we were only going to test the differences between human and machine identification but, with the slow identification of the LISST-HOLO images, we've added a self consistency test. We're going to take the LISST-HOLO images and run self consistency tests on all those participating in the experiment. Figured: If it's hard for a human to even get it right in the first place, how are we going to teach a computer program to do it correctly or even better?
So that's where I am now, trying to figure out exactly how we're going to do that. Should be interesting!

Other than THAT! I've just gotta say: Cookie Break? AWESOME! It was so much fun and I'm so glad that everyone at MBARI that came really enjoyed everything!
Also, finally saw Brave.... super cute. And it definitely made me cry.

Can't wait for the WATCH event this afternoon!
And this weekend is going to be a blast in LA! Road trip with Erica And visit with one of my sorority sisters

And it sounds like everyone's getting into the thick of their projects! Yay! I wish everyone good luck!

Third week already! As time I share with my intern friends accumulates, this internship is getting more fun. To relieve my anxiety about my (slow?) work progress due to having too much fun (I remember someone said there is not such thing as too much fun? :-p), I often have to remind myself of what George said about this internship, "This internship is not all about work." Speaking of which, I worked on my mentor's MATLAB codes this week, and it looks like I could manage to modify it and have it run with my data. I still need to verify the output of the codes and run more tests to check, but I think I can slowly move onto the next step or theoretical part of our project. My mentor Sergey developed a ocean currents prediction algorithm based on a historic HF radar data, and his algorithm and the background knowledge/theory are what I have been focusing on so far. He also has an idea of a compact ocean model for AUVs that can be run in the on-board system of them (I don't know much about this yet), and the final goal of my project would be to implement the ocean currents prediction algorithm in AUVs using the compact ocean model. I am not sure if I have a clear idea of this. I should talk to my mentor again. Early next year, I am having a field experiment in Long Bay using Slocum gliders. Unlike AUVs here at MBARI we don't have access to the onboard system of the gliders, so my personal final goal would be to figure out how to implement this whole idea of the ocean currents prediction and compact ocean model for the gliders. It is important to enjoy all the fun happening around here, but I also try not to forget about this.

Having trouble with my (live) critters. Will post later...

This week I worked on sprucing up some of the pages so they look beautiful externally. Brian showed me today how to do performance tests, so I will be doing that next week to figure out why the DSG is causing the server to hang when Brian tests it. Next week I will also be doing housekeeping - commenting, deleting code we're not using, and generating documentation. Hopefully we can figure out what's hanging the server so we can make it external soon! Brian's gone next week, so there's a lot of self-learning I'm going to have to do to figure out these tests.

I've finished filtering copepods from the second culture and hope to finish analysis on this batch next week. Tomorrow, we're going out to collect and filter sea water, which will be exciting because so far, I have been using copepods from a lab culture.

Otherwise, I'm hoping to participate in outreach activities more - today's lab work was all very time-sensitive, so it was non-stop work!

 -Audrey

The weeks are starting to fly by faster and faster!

 This week was a very productive one, and I've been able to go through a good amount of dives both in the canyon and on the seamount. I've also been able to cover dives with high populations of both Primnoids and Isidids which is awesome. Another interesting thing I've seen is a Japanese coke bottle down at 1500 m. I've also seen some great lava formations such as deflated pillow lava (which looks like a squeezed tube of toothpaste) on the Davidson Seamount. Have a great weekend!

Hi
Finally my project is well defined. I am going to develop a tool in Matlab to connect to a Opendap server, the one use to serve models output and automatically Matlab will download all the in situ data available in the STOQS database (AUV,Glider, ROV,..) for the area, date and depth of the model output. It's really useful for the people used to work with model, as I do.
Although I am learning Python and I will move to it, I am going to develop my project in Matlab cause most of the researcher work on Matlab, and I will like to develop a tool useful.
The cookie break was great, fun preparing the cookie and all the people very happy with it.
So very glad of the week ,and trying to talk with all the intern about his/her project, cause most of them are very close to my project, although perhaps they didn't know it. But I will like to talk with them and show the powerful of the databases

Hello Everyone!

Another incredible week at MBARI!
It flew by, just like the first two!

There were fewer, "Special Events" this week, so I hunkered down with work in the Submarine Volcanism Lab. I learned how the Clague lab processes their seafloor sediment cores in preparation to send off samples to an outside lab. The goal of the treatment is to isolate the Foraminifera for age-dating analysis. Each core is carefully sliced into 2-cm. sections. Each vertical section is treated with an antiflocculant, then filtered through a stack of four sieves of prescribed mesh sizes. After sieving, the remaining sediment (and Forams) are collected in a dish, then placed in a drying oven overnight. The next day, the sediment is carefully poured into a vial for out-sourced carbon-14 dating. The cores we worked with this week were collected by the ROV Doc Ricketts in the Gulf of California about seven weeks ago.

I also started looking at the lab's samples of volcanic glass collected from the Gulf of California. My task is to view the samples with a compound microscope, and determine the rough percentage of crystal content in the glass. This glass is so gorgeous! I have seen a lot of geological materials under dissecting scopes before, but I've never seen anything quite like this glass, and it has a story to tell!

Some of the Special Events that did occur include the following:

Monday: The Intern Cooke Break was a great success! I want to congratulate Sam, Geraldine, and all of the winners of the cookie contest! Heck, everyone was a winner, right? Perhaps the biggest winners were all of the MBARIans who were able to partake in the tasting phase of the contest!
Thanks for setting this up Sam et al.!

Tuesday: I played softball in a competitive setting for the first time since the Mesozoic. Yes, it was opening night for MBARI's Surfing Squirrels, and we won 18-2! They are really good! I am not, but I had fun!
I still need to arrange a fun, casual pick-up game for us (the interns)...If you guys are still interested in having this arranged, please let me know through the e-mail system.

Wednesday: We gathered at noon to talk about the Intern BBQ plans. It will be quite an event!

Thursday: I participated in a Land Use Panel with Jason, Sam, and Peter. The event was part of a Monterey Bay Aquarium program called, WATCH (Watsonville Area Teens Conserving Habitats). We gathered in the Pacific Forum where the student represented groups of various stakeholders that were either for or against a new development in the Watsonville region. Each group of "stakeholders" gave a Powerpoint (or Prezi) presentation (that they had 2 hours to prepare as a group), designed to sway the panel to their way of thinking about the project. We interns acted as the science panel that was scrutinizing the arguments. It was a very cool experience! At the end of the session, Connor asked each of the interns to go on stage and introduce ourselves to the high school students, and give them a little bit of insight as to how and why we are at MBARI. I could not believe how petrified I was! I was sooo nervous! Terrified! I am glad that Connor had us do this. I obviously need to practice public speaking, AND need to get ready to be presenting on this particular stage! August 15th is coming!

Oh, and by-the-way, I recently downloaded Mendeley's bibliographic software, and love it, so far!

Good luck with your projects, everyone!

-Patti