LEGO Alvin Update and a Rock Prize

A week ago I asked you to go vote for a proposed design for a LEGO Deep Sea Submersible Alvin. At the time, LEGO Alvin had 275 votes. I said that I’d give you an update on the voting a week later. At the moment, LEGO Alvin has 356 votes. So, over the last week LEGO Alvin has gained an additional 81 votes. That’s not bad, but I think we can do better! Well, we need to do better since a design needs 10,000 votes before LEGO will even take a look at it. Do you think we can convince 10,000 people to vote for LEGO Alvin? I think we can!

So, I’m going to extend the LEGO Alvin challenge for another two weeks. Please, please go vote for LEGO Alvin here. Please advertise the LEGO Alvin voting on Facebook, G+, Twitter, on your blog, etc. Please also encourage your friends, family, colleagues, and everyone else to go vote!

To encourage voting, I’ll offer a small prize. If you voted for LEGO Alvin, leave a comment below (honor system!). In two weeks I’ll select a winner by drawing names randomly out of a hat. I will send a rock prize to the winner. More specifically, I will send the winner a beautiful hand sample of Dwyka tillite which I collected in South Africa’s Karoo region.

You know you want this gorgeous sample of Dwyka tillite.

Happy voting!

Vote for the Deep Submergence Vehicle Alvin LEGO

Picture taken from here: http://lego.cuusoo.com/ideas/view/25750.

Do you know what would make a wonderful addition to the Georneys annual What to Buy a Geologist for Christmas list? A LEGO version of the Deep Sea Submersible Alvin! I have a soft spot in my heart for Alvin because I obtained my Ph.D. in Marine Geology from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, which operates the Alvin. I have never personally participated in an Alvin dive. However, my Ph.D. supervisor Susan Humphris has participated in many Alvin dives and is the scientist who has been leading the recent Alvin upgrade. You can read more about Susan and her work on Alvin in this recent article. I would love to be able to buy a LEGO Alvin for Susan– I’m sure she would love it! In fact, I want to buy a dozen or so LEGO Alvins and give them to all my scientist friends.

Here’s the thing, though: LEGO doesn’t actually make an Alvin. Not yet, anyway. However, there is a design for a LEGO Alvin in the Idea Stage, and you can help turn the Idea Stage into reality by voting here. The LEGO Alvin currently has 275 votes. Personally, I think we can do a little bit better than that! In order for LEGO to even take a look, a design needs 10,000 votes. So, please go vote for LEGO Alvin and tell all your friends and family to vote, too! Now, voting is a little bit difficult because you have to create an account or sign in with Facebook. However, please be patient and take a minute to vote for Alvin. And help me spread the word on other geology blogs and social media. Let’s aim for 10,000 votes!

Let’s start by seeing how many votes we can gather for LEGO Alvin in the next week. I’ll check-in again on Friday, October 25th to see how many more votes there are.

Alvin Cam

The Alvin Deep-Sea Submersible, Image taken from here.

The Alvin Cam may not be as cute as the Panda Cam, but as deep-sea submersibles go I think that Alvin is actually pretty adorable. Plus, someone has placed a cute stuffed animal dog with a hard hat in front of the camera.

The Alvin Cam monitors the upgrade of Alvin, a deep-sea submersible that has been taking humans deep in the world’s oceans since 1964. This makes Alvin the longest-operating deep-sea submersible with over 4,600 dives! Alvin is owned by the U.S. Navy and operated by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), where I am a graduate student.

Alvin is long overdue for an upgrade. The National Science Foundation is now funding a multimillion dollar upgrade that will install a larger sphere, more view portals, and other improvements. The upgrade will enhance Alvin’s capabilities and also make long dives more comfortable.

Over the next year or so, you can watch the Alvin upgrade live by tuning into the Alvin Cam. If you see a really neat event happening on the Alvin Cam, take a screenshot and email it to me at georneysblog (at) gmail (dot) com. I’ll post good screenshots on this blog. If you send a really great screenshot, I’ll reward you with a WHOI-themed prize*.

Read more about Alvin and the upgrade here and here and here.

I am particularly excited about the ongoing upgrade because my advisor is the PI (Principal Investigator, aka “the boss”) in charge of the upgrade. The upgrade certainly keeps my advisor busy! Remarkably, she still makes time for me amidst meetings with the Navy and engineers as well as many other obligations. My thesis seems very insignificant compared with the Alvin upgrade, so I feel very fortunate that my advisor makes so much time for me. She is a remarkable woman whom I admire very much.

Finally, here’s a really neat time-lapse video of Alvin being disassembled during a routine maintenance overhaul in 2005: Alvin Disassembly Movie.

*Don’t get too excited yet… might just be a WHOI pencil, though I’ll keep my eyes open for good WHOI swag.