Decorating GO-BGC Floats Before Deployment
Celebrating teamwork, creativity, and a little arts-and-crafts fun before six new floats launch from R/V Sikuliaq.
The six floats deployed from R/V Sikuliaq in the coming weeks will be sent overboard inside a cardboard box. That helps protect all the important sensors from being damaged during deployment, but it does mean that they’re less photogenic. Thankfully, we had some time to decorate the floats before they were boxed up and shipped out from Scripps Institution of Oceanography! Engineer Taylor Wirth is always happy to accommodate this arts and crafts project once he’s done building and testing the floats. Now we have fun and colorful photos to send to the classrooms that adopted these six floats. And this time around, new Scripps graduate students came out to help with the decorating. It’s a great way to introduce them to the float program and it’s always important to take a little art break during full days of science classes.
New Scripps graduate students decorating floats for deployment.
Decorated floats Conley Cougar, Sea Turtleitos, and Floating Eagle
Decorated floats Mary Mackillop, Hawky Float, and Black Duck
Stay tuned for more from floats Conley Cougar, Sea Turtleitos, Floating Eagle, Mary Mackillop, Hawky Float, and Black Duck, as well as the scientists and crew members that will help deploy them!
About the Author— Melissa Miller is a staff member in the GO-BGC and SOCCOM float programs who has deployed dozens of floats in her years at Scripps Oceanography and is also a freelance science writer who organizes science panels at pop culture conventions.