Dear MPA Collaborative members,


We are excited to announce a new opportunity to partner with OpenROV, the developers of a small, remotely operated (unmanned) submersible. Each MPA Collaborative will be receiving a donation of 2 Trident ROVs sometime this Fall. We are very interested in the potential for Collaboratives to use this technology to expand on or develop new Outreach and Education, and Citizen Science projects.

We are organizing a call this Wednesday at 9:30 am to discuss ROV-related projects for the upcoming small grants program. The purpose of the call is to get a conversation going about specific project ideas. We will have David Lang, co-founder of OpenROV, on the call to help answer questions about the Trident units.

One specific topic that has been suggested as a focus for research-oriented projects is monitoring of estuaries and eelgrass beds. Please refer to the project done in estuaries during baseline monitoring of North Coast MPAs as a reference, Baseline Characterization of Biodiversity and Target Species in Estuaries along the North Coast of California. We are gathering additional resources to help guide the development of research questions and proposals. Please reach out to the Collaborative Network staff, and also check our resources page where we will be adding more information.

For an overview of the Trident, please take a look at these technical specifications, as well as a link to the general website. 

To get you thinking about project ideas, please check out OpenExplorer, where you can search for current projects using OpenROV submersibles.

To join the call, please follow the link below:

Topic: Calla Allison's Zoom Meeting
Time: Jul 26, 2017 9:30 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Join from PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android: https://zoom.us/j/159420977

Or iPhone one-tap (US Toll):  +16465588656,,159420977# or +14086380968,,159420977#


Thank you,

MPA Collaborative Network Team
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