Planning

Without knowing the prompt, just fuelled with inspiration, Andrew came up with a concept, that eventually would become useless.
A concept that Andrew came up with, while talking with a friend, based on the concept "Ocean ecology and human coexistence with the ocean" was a robot that leaves "port", heads to a garbage patch, grabs trash, decomposes it into power, descends to the floor, maps it out and returns to the patch when out of fuel. When (Insert configurable time limit) expires, it returns to port. It can also trigger an emergency beacon if it runs out of fuel when not at port.
This is similar to the TeamSeas kinds of videos, especially Mark Rober's one, but it takes it to the next level and uses the fuel efficiently to map the ocean.

He then realised that since 94% of all trash in the ocean is on the sea floor, it didn't need to return to the surface, it's just that to help prevent other wildlife from suffering, it would be better if it returned to the surface.

In order to actually decompose the trash, Andrew & his friend had a few assumptions as to which methods could be used:

• Fire

• Bacteria in a solution

• Acid

Potential issues with these concepts, however, were that:

• Fire requires a renewable source of oxygen, and releases toxic chemicals

• Bacteria can mutate, and aren't helping the robot, but themselves

• Certain acids work for certain types of plastics

• We need a way of identifying types of plastic

Potential solutions to these issues were:

• Figure out nuclear fusion for a renewable source of air (However, this would generate infinite energy regardless)

• Not use bacteria

• An ultrasonic sensor/scanner to identify plastic compositions

• Only find certain plastics

Sources we could reach out to for more information are:

• The Ocean Cleanup (Robot inspiration)

• Kohei Oda, a professor at the Kyoto Institute of Technology

• Andy Pickford, a professor of molecular biophysics at the University of Portsmouth

Variations on this concept are:
- Power the robot using solar panels (But for radiation - E.g Gamma rays, UV, etc), that collects the trash into a container hold type of space, and maps the seafloor. Probably around 10*5*5 metres in size (Length, height, width).
-Using the rovers from NASA's mars missions as prototypes for our design, and using the resources it has (e.g. collecting samples) to our advantage by figuring out what can and can't be detected, and work from there.

Concept

To decide what our project should be, we brainstormed ideas, voted on our preferences and then researched our 2 most popular ideas for a week. Afterwards, we decided to merge 2 concepts: transport methods and hydroponics into our concept. We then researched a few questions about this, to learn more about it.

With a basic concept formed, progress slowed, until as we neared the tournament, we realised that we needed to develop it further and make a script, so we spent a meeting researching questions to determine what we could do with an idea like this.
We found that it could be successful, however we would need to expand it to also allowing cargo ships to restock, and position the station strategically, such as between shipping routes.

At Regionals, our presentation went well, with a high-scoring rubric, with two exceeds.

Between Regionals and Nationals, we spoke to a geodesist, who had worked and travelled in many different places, who gave us feedback based on our presentation.

We also set up a small-scale hydroponics system between tournaments, and tried to grow plants using three types of water:

• Tap water

• Mixed (1:6 salt/tap water)

• Salt water

The salt water plants didn't survive, the mixed plants did grow but could've been better and the tap water plants grew well, which means that a decent desalination setup would be needed on the station.

The End Concept

By Nationals, our Innovation Project was a network of hydroponics stations distributed around the world, on the ocean, potentially on retired ships or old oil stations, using desalinated water to grow fruit and vegetables, allowing:

• Passing research vessels to restock, preventing them from using canned food

• Longer research expeditions

• Cargo ships to restock as well, perhaps using smaller go-between vessels.

The stations would have a set list of crops to grow, however they could also grow some regional plants, as fitting the climate.