The Face-to-face Educational Submarine Robotics Workshop, organised as part of the EDUROVs initiative, started in PLOCAN’s shore facilities on the 14th of November, and it has planned eleven visits between now and the end of the year, following the scientific dissemination lines developed on the ground at PLOCAN, and hosting a total of 27 schools and more than 1000 students from the island of Gran Canaria Canaria. During the sessions, students build marine robots from low-cost tools, using Arduino as a free hardware platform and Scratch / Visualino as freeware tools.
PLOCAN hosts in thee week of 20th November the 3rd General Assembly of the European AtlantOS Project. The plenary sessions will take place in The Alfredo Kraus Auditorium of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria on the 22nd and 23rd of November, while the rest of the sessions have been organized in the PLOCAN onshore facilities. The objective of the AtlantOS project is to act as an umbrella and organise oceanic observation activities into an integral Atlantic Ocean observation system.
The Macaronesia Inter-regional, Multidisciplinary Knowledge Transfer Network to protect, guard and monitor cetaceans in the marine environment and to analyse and sustainably exploit the associated tourism activity (MARCET Project) convened the first project knowledge transfer conference in Gran Canaria for the 29th and 30th of November.
A great effort has been made to generate synergies among the different European-funded projects dealing with the management, research and conservation of the marine environment for this project, driving their use as sustainable resources that are currently in the implementation stage in the region of Macaronesia (MISTIC Seas II, LIFE IP INTEMARES, and INDICIT).
The conference will be divided into two parts: dissemination on the 29th, which will be held in the Elder Museum of Science and Technology, where the intention is to inform the general public and the people responsible for managing cetacean and turtle strandings in particular, of the actions and initiatives that MARCET will be implementing in 2014 – 2020, and another part, on the 30th of November in the Veterinary Faculty of the ULPGC, for technicians and vets who work or co-operate in stranding networks in Macaronesia.
PLOCAN was included in the (MTS, Marine Technology Society) annual review of oceanic observation activities on the Ocean News and Technology web site. The MTS is the leading international community of engineers, technologists, legislators and educators in the marine-maritime sector, promoting awareness, understanding, advancement and application of marine technology.
The PLOCAN review focuses on the mooring of the oceanic platform, also providing an up-date on the Electric and Communications Infrastructure (IECOM), the European Oceanic Time Series Station of the Canary Islands (ESTOC) and the fleet of gliders (gliders). The article also highlights the international oceanic observation projects that PLOCAN is involved in.
