Manchester Science Festival schools program

Last week, SERPENT had the opportunity to visit with schools in the Manchester region in a special pre- Manchester Science Festival schools program event called Speedy Science.

From Tuesday 20 to Wednesday 21 October, SERPENT wowed schoolkids with its blend of science and hands-on fun. Groups of year 8 children from 6 local schools had the opportunity to pilot a Deep Sea Robot using our exciting Marine Simulation ROVsim™ simulator over the two-day event, held at the Pure nightclub at the Printworks in the heart of Manchester city centre.

Rob Curry, SERPENT outeach co-ordinator and Hanna Shuster, SERPENT PhD student had a great time meeting and talking with the enthusiastic children and taking them through their paces on the simulator.

Best quote of the event? "I wanna be a Marine Scientist when I finish school!"

Day three at the British Science festival

Well, after a busy and successful weekend in beautiful downtown Guildford meeting the good visitors to the BSF, we have now moved lock, stock and two smoking barrels to the marquee in front of the Austin Pierce Building at the University of Surrey, also in Guildford.

SERPENT has welcomed 400 schoolchildren today who were all over the SERPENT simulator. They can't keep away and keep coming back for seconds! This event rocks! The opportunities for hands-on science are too good to miss, so if you're reading this make sure you come over to join in with the fun!

Cheers!

Rob

SERPENT will be at the British Science Festival in Guildford

5 - 10 September 2009 - SERPENT at the British Science festival

The SERPENT project will be exhibiting at the exciting British Science Festival in Guildford from Saturday 5 September. Organised by the British Science Association it's one of Europe's largest science festivals bringing you the latest in science, technology and engineering. The event runs from Saturday 5 - Thursday 10 September 2009 and will showcase more than 350 of the most exciting and innovative science in the UK, and SERPENT will be there for the whole week.

Where will we be?

At the weekend, we will be in Guildford town centre at the Trinity Centre. View location in Google maps. Click on the pointer to find out how to get there from your location (use your postcode).

From Monday 7 September, we will be in a marquee in front of the Austin Pearce Building (building 2 in this map),at the University of Surrey in Guildford. Information about visiting the University.

What will we be showing?

• A Deep Sea Robot simulator where visitors can capture and collect specimens from the sea floor.


• A Magic Globe displaying Oceanographic data in animated format.


• Findings from our recent research into how deep sea creatures are contributing to removing CO2 from the atmosphere in the form of Carbon and depositing it into the seafloor.


• An amazing picture mosaic of a Piglet Squid showing 1000 of the images gathered by the SERPENT project.

Programme of events

We look forward to seeing you!

SERPENT Royal Society day 3!

What a week! The SERPENT project has been very popular with a constant stream of visitors hugely enjoying our amazing Marine Simulation ROVsim™ Deep Seas Simulator. I suspect the comfy racing chair on the simulator helps - most visitors are really grateful to take the weight off after wandering around the upstairs exhibits and they really enjoy the cool of our downstairs exhibition area.

See the BBC News video (Dan enjoying the simulator - 4 secs into video)

Thanks to all our visitors who have asked some very interesting and thought-provoking questions about the project. The children have enjoyed having a go at Sea Urchin Basketball! Don't know what that is? Come visit us to find out! The show goes on until Saturday for the first time this year, so we expect to see plenty of families enjoying an exciting and educational day out at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition. See you there! Rob.

SERPENT ready to go at Royal Society!

After a sweltering day setting up, SERPENT is finally ready to welcome visitors to the 2009 Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition!

We're lucky that where we are in the Mercer Room on the lower floors of the amazing and opulant Royal Society building, the temperature is cool and comfortable. So if you've had enough of the heat, come down the stairs and meet us, and have a bit of fun trying your hand at catching creatures with our Virtual Deep Sea Robot Simulator courtesy of Marine Simulation LLC!

Find out how to get there with Google Maps.

See you soon!

SERPENT at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition

Now's your chance to have a go at piloting the exciting SERPENT Deep Seas ROV Simulator!

Come visit the SERPENT team and try your hand at collecting creatures using the simulator at this year's Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition from Monday 30 June to Saturday 4 July.

Free SERPENT Annual Reports showing amazing images of all our work during 2008!

SERPENT Annual Report 2008

It's that time again! The brand-new SERPENT Annual Report for 2008 has just rolled off the virtual presses. Visit the website to get your copy now! You can also click on the image to read the E-Format Issuu version right now!

SERPENT at the Times Cheltenham Science Festival

Described as a "Mind-tingling feast of debate and entertainment", the Cheltenham Science Festival in the UK hosted the SERPENT project as part of the University of Southampton's "Oceans on Wheels" Roadshow. For three days at the beginning of June, SERPENT presented at the exciting and bustling Discovery Zone.

Patient queues of children (along with some adults!) were rewarded with an opportunity to pilot a deep sea ROV using the SERPENT ROVsim® simulator designed by Marine Simulation LLC™. SERPENT teams were able to discuss the project with adults and children alike who were amazed at the huge diversity of the creatures found in the deep ocean and fascinated by the research being undertaken by the SERPENT project.

SERPENT science makes the Economist.com!

The recent paper by Dr Daniel Jones and Mario Lebrato called "Mass deposition event of Pyrosoma atlanticum carcasses off Ivory Coast (West Africa)" which was recently featured in the prestigeous publication Limnology and Oceanography is the subject of an article in both the web and print editions of the Economist.

From the Economist article "IN 2006 Mario Lebrato and Daniel Jones of the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, England, were using a remotely operated deep-sea vehicle to study the sea floor near an oil pipeline off Côte d’Ivoire. What they found surprised them. It was a thaliacean graveyard. And its discovery throws into question the received wisdom about one important aspect of climate change, namely how much carbon from the atmosphere ends up at the bottom of the sea."

Read the Economist article.

Read more on the National Oceanography site.

See a video of a live pyrosome.

Latest SERPENT mission online

Just updated the site with the latest mission by Dan to the Akpo field offshore Nigeria. You can check out the Mission Minisite from the Missions page.

Lots of nice images, like this ethereal one of peniagone.

Well hi everyone!

SERPENT has finally submerged itself into the blogosphere. Over the next few months we aim to start dusting off the furniture and setting up home so you can come back and relax while we show you what goes on in the deep dark oceans of the world.

See you soon!

This is the blog of the SERPENT project.

Collaborating closely with key players in the oil and gas industry, the "Scientific and Environmental ROV Partnership using Existing iNdustrial Technology" (SERPENT) project aims to make cutting-edge industrial ROV technology and data more accessible to the world's science community, share knowledge and progress deep-sea research.
The programme interacts with science and conservation groups globally to communicate the project to the public, increasing the awareness of our fragile marine resources.

SERPENT presents to IADC

12 May 2009 - SERPENT scientist Dr Andrew Gates today gave a presentation entitled "Effects of Drilling on Deep-Water Seabed Communities" to the International Association of Drilling Contractors (IADC) at the 2009 IADC Environmental Conference & Exhibition at the Clarion Hotel in Stevanger, Norway.

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