Since I was a kid, I feel like it has been reinforced that the scientific process is one of trial and, far more often than I'd like, error. As a kid I learned about science with a sort of starry eyed wonder - how could scientists just go out into the world and DISCOVER? And as I grew up, I took the required science classes and discovered, much to my dismay, that science can be pretty aptly described as a series of happy, well-timed accidents with a little bit of brilliance and good luck (*and on more than a few occasions, bad luck) thrown in the mix. Confused and intrigued, I continued to pursue my fascination with science by chasing down a Bachelor's in Biology. This endeavor took me around the world to Australia where I was faced with my first serious struggle with the scientific method. I'll paint the picture - there we were on the Great Barrier Reef, tasked with studying a symbiotic relationship between a species of crab an type of coral. Putting our four heads together, we engineered this brilliant system of mounting GoPros above the coral colony of interest and PRESTO we'd have video footage of the crabs' interactions with their coral host! Well that design was an INCREDIBLE failure. We couldn't see ANYTHING in the footage we took. This was the first experimental design that I had had the opportunity to contribute to EVERY aspect of the experiment and was my first true head-on interaction with the absolute FRUSTRATION of having a brilliantly (or at least so we thought) design come back and just crash and burn. Determined to try again and, if for no other reason than our grade relied entirely on having a project where we had SOME FORM of successful data collection, we managed to put our heads together again and come up with a different form of observation which allowed us to cover even more colonies each observation AND gave us reliable results! This process has since been ingrained in my mind as part of the scientific process. For every success there has been lots of thought and reconsideration and occasionally just throwing your best at the problem and hoping for the best (at least in ecology to my experience), so with good faith and a fair dose of hope, I had the opportunity to try out my buoys at their attachment points on Wilson during the Pacific Trials. With hope and some trepidation, I prepped my two buoys (an arduous task of removing a single magnetic pin from each buoy being deployed), and gave them to the people going out in the workboat to attach to the System 001. Pictured below, I'd like to introduce Bob the Buoy. Bob was deployed for TWO WEEKS on the barrier during the Pacific Trials, and for the most part, he performed SPECTACULARLY! As the days wore on and we conducted our tests and monitoring of Wilson during the Trials, I got to say "hi" to Bob on pretty much a daily basis. As my first buoy in the water, I was particularly attached to this little dude. However, we hit a pretty rough spell of weather (see Bree almost falling off the treadmill for an approximate 5 day period) and both buoys remained attached at their critical attachment points! YAY! The experimental design WORKED! But then as the time passed, it became apparent that one of the buoys had suffered some damage either in the storm or due to the storm, and eventually, Bob stopped working and had to be removed from the trial. Well this is my goodbye and obituary to a fantastic buoy. Bob was a fixture in the Trials, and he will be remembered as we continue our way to the GPGP and beyond. Thanks for the soundings Bob, you will be missed.
3 Comments
Robin
10/4/2018 08:37:28 pm
Did you just invite me to correct your spelling and grammar? Oh boy!
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10/9/2018 05:06:24 pm
Is Bob a shout out to the Church of the SubGenius or merely a descriptive name for what your buoy did all day before his untimely demise?
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10/9/2018 05:08:41 pm
Not sure why the link didn't work on that last post... Let's see if this one works...
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AuthorBree Gibbs, here. I'm a recent Master's Grad just trying to share what it's like to be a trash scientist (for those who aren't in the know, I'm a marine biologist). Categories
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