ISLESBORO- Recently, Islesboro Central School was visited by Graham Hawkes, ocean explorer and submersible inventor, as part of a partnership between HAWX Open Ocean, Hurricane Island Center for Science and Leadership, the Chicago EcoHouse School, The Apprenticeship, and Islesboro Central School. HAWX Open Ocean began looking for a community that would be an ideal place to prototype applications for their new ultra low-cost autonomous Sea Rocket.

Penobscot Bay was a natural fit because of the large number of organizations, individuals, and institutions that are dedicated to creating a vibrant sustainable marine community through education, research, economic development, exploration and innovation.

Driven by the need to make our ocean planet a better place for his grandkids, world-renown marine engineer and owner of HAWX Open Ocean, Graham Hawkes designed the Sea Rocket to make exploring more than 70 percent (how much of the plant’s surface is covered by the ocean) of our ocean planet possible for everyone, especially kids. The Sea Rocket travels vertically from the surface of the water to the bottom and back up collecting data and taking video along the way.

The Sea Rocket leaves a burlap ballast bag and a steel retaining ring on the ocean bottom and students wanted to find a more environmentally responsible solution, something which would biodegrade quickly. High school science students at Islesboro are working with the Chicago EcoHouse to create a ballast bag and ring made from kelp-based bioplastic. This winter, the Chicago Eco House students will use a 3D printer to draft and 3D print prototypes of the ring mechanism that holds the weight for Islesboro students to test and the Islesboro students will work on developing a biopolymer which meets the performance criteria required for the Sea Rocket.

On January 8, Graham visited Islesboro and presented students with a Sea Rocket for the students to use in the testing phase of their design challenge. The presentation was for all grades, and Graham challenged all students to develop questions about their local marine environment which could be answered with pictures and data collected by the Sea Rocket. HAWX Open Ocean’s vision is to build a global crowd sourcing community of citizen scientists, community activists, scouts, boaters, naturalists...making and using the Sea Rocket to share images, videos and data of what they are discovering in the ocean.

“The Penobscot Bay community is the perfect test tube environment for helping to refine the Sea Rocket design, process and messaging for creating a sustainable ocean future,” Graham said.