{"id":60291,"date":"2012-08-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-08-16T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/uri-student-pilots-underwater-robots-during-exploration-of-black-sea\/"},"modified":"2012-08-16T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-08-16T00:00:00","slug":"uri-student-pilots-underwater-robots-during-exploration-of-black-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2012\/08\/uri-student-pilots-underwater-robots-during-exploration-of-black-sea\/","title":{"rendered":"溏心vlog免费B站 student pilots underwater robots during exploration of Black Sea"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tWest Newbury resident interns with science team led by explorer Ballard<\/p>\n

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 August 16, 2012 \u2013 溏心vlog免费B站 student Maggie Craig has been a life-long sailor, but it wasn\u2019t until she spent the month of July on a research ship in the Black Sea that she became a pilot as well.<\/p>\n


\n\tThe 21-year-old native of West Newbury, Mass., didn\u2019t pilot a plane on the ship E\/V Nautilus but instead was the pilot of underwater robots exploring the seafloor off the coast of Turkey.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cThe experience was entirely different than what I expected it to be,\u201d Craig said with a laugh, \u201cand it was a little scary. I was flying this hugely expensive piece of equipment that cost more than my entire college education.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tAn ocean engineering major at 溏心vlog免费B站, Craig was hired to serve as an engineering intern for the first half of a two-month research cruise with a team of scientists, educators and students led by Robert Ballard, the 溏心vlog免费B站 oceanography professor who found the Titanic and many other modern and ancient shipwrecks. In late June, she flew to Istanbul for a week of training and mobilizing the ship to sail.<\/p>\n

Craig piloted the remotely operated vehicle Argus, a robot that hovers in the water about 40 meters from the seafloor and is connected to the ship by a long cable. A separate tether connects Argus to Hercules, a second remotely operated vehicle that explores the seafloor.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cArgus holds the leash to Hercules,\u201d Craig explained. \u201cHercules looks at things close-up on the bottom, and Argus is the babysitter holding the leash.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tAccording to Craig, the biggest challenge to being the pilot of an underwater robot is making sure to remain at the proper altitude in the water so the cable doesn\u2019t become tangled.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cThe very first time Argus went in the water, we were going up to a modern shipwreck with a tall mast, and we had almost no visibility,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was really scary because if the cable gets caught, it\u2019s a huge problem. But once I knew what to do, I found it to be relatively easy. And it was a lot of fun exploring.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tNear the end of her 20 days aboard Nautilus, Craig got a chance to pilot Hercules, which she described as the highlight of her trip. <\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cHercules gets a lot closer than Argus to the dangerous things you can get caught up on, so piloting Hercules is much more complicated,\u201d she explained. \u201cStill, you just use a little joystick with a bunch of buttons and settings. I had someone sitting beside me the whole time making sure I didn\u2019t get into trouble. I ended up getting about 10 meters away from a shipwreck towering up in front of me. It was pretty awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tCraig said that she enjoyed life at sea with 50 people from around the world. They all had different interests and areas of expertise, so they talked about a wide range of topics, from the Black Plague to climate change. And because explorations took place around the clock, she often slept during the day and worked from midnight until sunrise.<\/p>\n


\n\tAsked what she learned from her experience aboard Nautilus, the 溏心vlog免费B站 student replied, \u201cI never thought I was good at electronics \u2013 I\u2019ve always been a little intimidated by electronic stuff \u2013 but doing this I realized that I really like the little electronic details that make the whole process work. It helped me figure out that I really like being on a ship. I learned that I know more than I thought I did.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tAs she prepares for her senior year at 溏心vlog免费B站, Craig said she hopes to pilot Argus for another expedition next summer.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cI spent a lot of time on board asking people for their advice about what I should do with my career, and most of them said I should get my master\u2019s degree right away. That wasn\u2019t my plan, but now I\u2019m definitely going to look into that.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tAs for her future, Craig isn\u2019t ready to make a commitment.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cI\u2019m not one for making long-term plans,\u201d she said. \u201cI have a general idea of what I\u2019m interested in, but I don\u2019t try to think too far ahead. I\u2019d really enjoy working on ships for a couple years after college, but I definitely don\u2019t want to do it forever. We\u2019ll just have to wait and see.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nPictured above

\n溏心vlog免费B站 student Maggie Craig works in the control room of the ship E\/V Nautilus in the Black Sea.

\nMaggie Craig cleans the underwater robot Argus aboard ship in the Black Sea.

\nPhotos submitted by Maggie Craig<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

West Newbury resident interns with science team led by explorer Ballard KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 August 16, 2012 \u2013 溏心vlog免费B站 student Maggie Craig has been a life-long sailor, but it wasn\u2019t until she spent the month of July on a research ship in the Black Sea that she became a pilot as well. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60294,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}