Kate Braumuller                                                                                              2/23/15

Biology 10                                                                                                      McClellen

Lubofsky, Evan. "A Smarter Undersea Robot." Oceanus Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Feb. 2015.

Link here.

The article, “A Smarter Undersea Robot,” by Evan Lubofsky discusses a new and improved underwater robot.  Common undersea robots are missing “curiosity” says Lubofsky.  These robots take more than 100,000 images on just one mission on roaming the seafloor.  Scientist Lubofsky proclaimed,  “We don’t care about millions of images, we just want to get the information that’s important to us.” Scientists are trying to create a new robot that is able to distinguish whether objects seen are ‘interesting’ or just ordinary.  If underwater robots were able to determine weather something is unordinary, this will allow researchers to spend less time sifting through the countless images and more time collecting “meaningful data”. Researchers have developed specialized software in which a robot can extract visual information from its surroundings as well as categorize patters and data collected.  This software was based off of a concept referred to as semantic modeling. Scientists then could make faster discoveries.  Scientists have created a prototype of a underwater robot, named Aqua.  This prototype was able to distinguish that a coral head was more important than mountains of sand.  The next step for these scientists is to turn the prototype into an actual research tool. Scientists will use the software they developed on a more technologically advanced robot known as a WHOI robot.

This new robot will enable scientists to collect more sufficient and important data, allowing for quicker discoveries.  Knowing more about our ocean, will allow us to make newer discoveries perhaps leading to new ways to benefit the environment.  The world is always changing, along with our seas, with new technology we are able to discover and understand it better and improve life on earth. I chose this article because I found it very interesting how new advances in technology are being made.  I am interested in learning more about new technology and how it benefits research.

This article was very simple to read, it was very well structured but challenged me at the same time. I enjoyed the authors connections to common knowledge, such as the reference to the Dr. Seuss book, “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.” It made the reading fun and kept me engaged.  One thing I would have changed in the article would be the description of the software created.  I would have liked to know more on how that worked. Many articles on science can be very bland, this article was interesting and enjoyable to read.

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