Sea Grant at the MIT Open House April 23rd

The 2016 MIT Open House will take place Saturday April 23rd from 10:00-2:00. There will be over 350 activities planned to enlighten and inspire¢whether you’re a child or an adult, a student or a teacher. There¡s plenty to see and do for everyone!Sea Grant will be located at the Saxon Tennis Courts on the corner of Ames and Memorial, come visit us!Drive an Underwater Robot!SeaPerch is a simple underwater remotely operated vehicle that you can build yourself out of common household materials. It is a fun, hands-on project, that introduces students, teachers and interested hobbyists to ocean engineering. Come explore SeaPerch and the world of ocean engineering. Test drive a SeaPerch ROV in a 100 gallon aquarium.Green Eelgrass, Blue Carbon Eelgrass is a flowering marine plant that forms one of the most valuable shallow? water coastal habitats in Massachusetts. New research shows that in addition to being important nursery habitats for fish and crabs, eelgrass beds are also an valuable sink for blue carbon. Unfortunately, declining water quality has caused many local eelgrass beds to disappear, destroying the habitat and releasing all the stored carbon back into the environment. Quantifying how carbon is stored in eelgrass beds helps us understand these valuable ecosystems. Come explore eelgrass!Predicting Engineering and Scientific Systems: Physics-Based Modeling and ComputingAt MIT Sea Grant Design Lab, we develop variable-fidelity models from first principles for a variety of engineering and scientific applications. We solve these models using computational methods that we develop. Some of the research we will highlight include system-level thermal modeling of all electric ships, high-fidelity simulations of thermal components aboard naval ships, and developing computational methods to predict rare events such as extreme waves. We also develop algorithms that blend in information from multiple sources with different levels of fidelity to predict the response of the system. The outcome of our modeling and computational capabilities allows us to understand, analyze and design engineering systems.Powered by WavesThe Ocean is still an almost unexplored source of sustainable energy production. A team led by MIT Sea Grant’s Assistant Director for Research, Stefano Brizzolara, developed an all enclosed, monolithic floating Inertial Ocean Wave Energy Converter, or IOwec. The main system components are well proven, mature, highly reliable technologies and the device has been designed so that there are no articulation or moving parts in direct contact with water. The IOwec device is highly flexible and adaptable, with the capacity to convert energy from varied sea states, while maintaining safety and reliability. A scaled down model will be on display. The Autonomous Underwater Vehicles Lab at MIT Sea Grant CollegeThe AUV Lab at MIT Sea Grant is demonstrating how laser detection and ranging systems (LiDAR) are used on autonomous unmanned surface vessels (USV), with a live sensor feed and recorded data sets from marine environments. The AUV Lab is currently developing its fourth-generation marine sensing platform consisting of an autonomous unmanned surface vessel (USV) and a tethered underwater component to deploy sensors and remotely operated vehicles (ROVs). The AUV Lab serves as a training ground for graduate and undergraduate students, visiting engineers, and scientists, from around the world, who both learn from and contribute to the Lab’s current marine research activities.