Hi everyone, this is Bertha.
Bertha, meet everyone.
She'd beep at you, but now I think about it, I haven't added any speakers or sound capability yet.
Bertha is a side-side-side project of mine. You see, I have a dream of building autonomous sailing boats en-masse to do ocean research and protection.
Say, what?
There is a significant amount in there to unravel. I first dreamed this up as the Sea Shepard organisation was jousting with Japanese whalers in the Pacific. It seemed that there must be a more effective (both result and cost) way of doing this.
The cost of putting a single vessel to sea for the conservation group is monstrous. And that's for one boat, that can only be in one place at a time, and has to take on significant risk.
So my idea of a small fleet (big would be better) of autonomous boats was born.
They could do all kinds of ocean research with a few sensors added and report in periodically. They can be positioned as requested or be left to go where they decide based on factors like weather conditions, proximity to other vessels (including each other) and even just investigate things they find interesting.
The cost of these would be minimal compared to the existing fleet and have far more capability while they are at sea.
How again does this help whales?
Well, surely there is a sound or something they could produce to scare whales if they are in danger; imitate a pod of Orca's or something.
But that's the least of my worries. I had no idea how to have code interact with the physical world, nor did I understand autonomous drones.
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