Aug 06, 2010 - Claremont, CA -

The Ocean Research and Conservation Association (ORCA) will soon launch a new, portable deep-sea webcam that evolved from a prototype designed by a Harvey Mudd College Clinic team. The camera will be used to study bioluminescent deep-sea creatures.

Marine biologist Edith Widder, president and senior scientist of ORCA, told Scientific American, "This is the first stage of trying to wire the ocean."

Widder, who studies bioluminescence—the production and emission of light by a living organism—in deep-sea creatures, first developed the camera’s prototype in collaboration with an HMC Clinic student team in 2001. In order to “observe and not disturb,” as Widder put it, the camera uses infrared light, unseen by most sea creatures, to collect rare images of deep-sea ocean life and capture bioluminescent communication patterns.

The original model for an autonomous deep-sea video acquisition system was developed and built by former HMC Clinic team members John Staroba '01, Jane Mi '01, Nicholas Depail, David Levitt '02 and Christine Paulson '02, with faculty advisor Lori Bassman, associate professor of engineering, for their Clinic project, Eye in the Sea: Unobtrusive Biological Observatory.

• Read the full article in Scientific American.
• Read about other HMC Clinic success stories.
• Learn more about the Clinic Program.