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Life after the BioSUB
After 12 Days
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The
BioSUB goes to school
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This has
been a great experience for us and from what we hear, it
sounds like it was a
fantastic experience for you too! We are still receiving
lots of e-mails from kids, teachers and parents, thanking us
for bringing a big issue like sustainable energies into the
classroom in a very different and exciting way. That is why
we decided to organise a
school tour
and visit all the schools that have expressed a big interest
in meeting Lloyd in person and finding out all about the
underwater project. We are planning to start our trip in May
so if you are in a school in the area of
NSW,
VIC or
SA
please send us an e-mail
requesting us to visit you and we will try and come your way
too. We are looking forward to meeting you all and thanking
you for all your support and letters you sent Lloyd during
the last month. See you soon!
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Daily underwater video diary
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Hip Hip
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What
a day! Lloyd decided to come out on Wednesday at 12pm and
join us for a big welcome back party! It was a beautiful day
that we got to share with lots of friends, visitors and some
of our sponsors. We had media come from all around the
country even by helicopter! In the morning a cameraman from
Discovery Channel, Canada did some filming inside the
habitat and around 12pm kids from the shore started the
countdown! Lloyds father, Russell, together with Des
Walters from Descend Underwater Training Centre had the
honour of paddling out in a kayak and knocking on Lloyds
roof to 'call' him out. Not long after that Lloyd swam out and the crowd went
crazy! After waving the Australian Geographic flag on top
of the habitat, Lloyd gave a big hug to his dad, his
personal inspiration for this project. Here are some photos
of that special day.
Underwater Mission.
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Elizabeth, the underwater visitor
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And Hundreds of human visitors every day
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We have had an amazing turnout from the
first day, especially over Easter time, we had visitors from all
around Australia, it was great! Schools and families visit the
site and have a chat to Lloyd, we have some really busy times
here, never get lonely! Thank you all for coming and supporting
Lloyd with his project.
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Special treatment for our Aquanaut
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Isn't Lloyd lucky?! Every day he is
getting the newspaper delivered to his door and last night two
of our volunteers Gordon and Trudy cooked some salmon on the
barbeque for him. Special delivery, Lloyds' dinner was in the
habitat in less than 2minutes and was still hot and steamy! A
gourmet dish along with a glass of red wine, Lloyd almost felt
like he was joining the party on shore!
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An ordinary day, underwater.
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A lot
of people, and kids especially, are wondering what Lloyd is
doing all day and whether he gets bored! Well actually Lloyd is
very busy all day talking and hardly ever does he get a bit of
time to rest. We also have lots of visitors every day here on
site that get to have a chat to Lloyd. Thanks to Telstra, Lloyd
gets to do lots of interviews every morning with the media all
over the world, live from the Bigpond. Other than that, Lloyd
has do his psychological and health monitor tests twice a day
and send off all his results every night to the USA. He can
monitor all the important gases like his oxygen and CO2 through
the Draeger safety device and let his support crew know if there
are any serious changes and action needs to be taken. So, as you
can imagine, some quite busy times underwater for Lloyd, nothing
like what he imagined!
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6 Days and still smiling
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Lloyd is already half way there, having
a big learning experience underwater. Actually,
it has been a big learning experience for all of us by trying to
improve his living conditions. Yesterday we added another fan to
circulate the air in the habitat and it seems that this makes
the algae pretty happy. Today we are planning to add some more
lights for our plants to optimize their photosynthetic nature
and therefore produce more oxygen for Lloyd. They have been
doing a good job up until now but we are certain that they can
do even better with a bit of help. So we will find out in the
next day or so, what difference those lights have made.
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A big thanks to our volunteers
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We can't thank enough our volunteers for
being here for us all day, every day. It has been an amazing
team effort and our volunteers have made it a lot easier for us.
So a special thanks to our divers: Chris, Ross, Ian,
Ashley, Kylie, Phil, Roy, Paula, Gordon, James, Andrew and
Glenda for monitoring Lloyd 24 hours every day and delivering
all his requests! Also, a massive thanks to our 24 hour
available support crew for doing everything they can (and they
can do everything!) to solve underwater issues, Daryl Lavis, our
electrician and Craig Martin from Solarco ALbury. Have a look
here at our divers.
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Official beginning of The BioSUB Project:
Thursday 5th of April 2007, 6pm.
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It has been 48 hours since Lloyd moved
down to his new temporary home and he is having a great time. We
have had lots of visitors during the day, especially little
ones, bombarding Lloyd with questions and getting a tour of the
habitat! A very big thanks to all of you that have sent
encouraging e-mails to Lloyd, he really appreciates them and
will try and reply to all of them. I know you all have been
waiting for some internal shots of the habitat and I am sorry we
haven't updated the website up until now, but it's been really
busy here organising everything. The big news are that Lloyd,
after spending more than 24 hours underwater, is officially an
Aquanaut! So, here they are, enjoy!
Start the countdown.
Packing bags.
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Divers and nurses who may be interested in acting as
surface support crew are wanted for the first two weeks of
April. Descend Underwater Training Centre is planning to have
staff onsite but we need some help, watching Lloyd around the
clock. If your interested in helping (no matter how much or how
little) let us know when you could be available. This is your
chance to support a local project and be part of the team that
makes history!
Please send us an email and let
us know your availability so we can make a roster for
volunteers.
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Little visitors
at 'The Pit'.
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On March 27th five regional schools from all
around Albury visited the Wonga Wetlands and The Pit to meet
Lloyd and learn all about The BioSUB Project. About 130 students had the opportunity to get a close look
at the biocoil and the algae growing in it, spot the habitats'
roof underwater, check out the photographic exhibition, meet
Lloyd and ask all sort of questions. Click here
to have a look at some cute photos from the day.
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Arranging the interior design of the
habitat.
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The kids from Cascade High School in Idaho helped
us put together the biggest items that Lloyd is taking with him
underwater, to get an idea of how much room is left for other
stuff. Well, there wasn't much space left but the habitat
certainly looked cozy. With a blue-grey marine carpet on the
floor, Rusty feels like home.
 
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'Rusty' calling from underwater. Roger
that!
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Sign up for our online and real-time interactive educational
events now! Don't miss this unique opportunity to log on and
talk to Lloyd while he lives underwater. The South
Australian Department of Education & Children’s Services (DECS)
is pleased to announce a series of free events delivered
through its ESchooling Service using Centra virtual
classroom technology to school-aged students anywhere in the
world.
In addition to the daily links with Lloyd, DECS will host
two special virtual classroom events. One will be with
Professor of Psychology Nancy Rader who will use NASA
designed software to examine Lloyd for the effects of
isolation on mood state, anxiety, depression, memory,
attention and problem solving. The second special event will
link to students from Cascade High School, Idaho, USA who
over a period of 10 years have developed a Biocoil, the
technology that will act as Lloyd’s life support system in
the form of a photosynthetic bioreactor.
The month of March - the countdown has started.
It's all happening!
Ready to go
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The BioSUB has passed its first
BIG test. Using two cranes, we simulated the pressures
that will be
exerted on the habitat underwater by turning it
 upside down and
filling it with water. We then
lifted it from four of its eight lifting points and there were
no leaks and no worries
whatsoever! Conclusion: The BioSUB is rock solid.
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Our yellow submarine is just
beautiful! From top to bottom. It
is sparkling, almost glowing
in the dark. David Nichols from Rural Container Supplies did a
great job in giving the BioSUB a
golden yellow colour outside and a homely white colour inside,
making it look a lot more cosy. The BioSUB team is very grateful
to David for accommodating the BioSUB for the past 3 weeks and supporting us in every possible way.
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.JPG "Lloyd ad Carolina, proud habitat owners.")
Adventurer of the Year
at the Society's annual awards held at the Powerhouse Museum in
Sydney. Lloyd and Carolina dedicated the award to Lloyd's father
for being a huge inspiration throughout the project. A special
thanks to the Australian Geographic Society for a very memorable
and emotional night, a night we will definitely remember for a
long time.
(posthumously)
for the first crossing of the Tasman Sea by kayak. The 'Young
Adventurer of the Year' award went to Rex
Pemberton, the
youngest Australian to climb the Seven Summits. The
'Conservation' award went to Lizzie Corke and
Shayne Neal for
running the Cape Otway for conservation ecology. The 'Spirit of
Adventure' award went to Andrew
Gregory and Kieran Kelly
for paddling sea kayaks to
search saltwater crocs at Kimberly. 
That's the problem with doing a fun project, it can only be the
beginning of many more to come. So, you all have seen that we
can do a terrific job with a grant, that is why we would like
you to feel free to trust us in doing another cool project with
a lot to show. Anyone out there interested in finding out more
information about our next adventure, please visit
.JPG "And so did the media.")
.JPG "Just before 12pm, Russell and Des paddled out to get Lloyd.")
.JPG "While the kids on shore were shouting the countdown, we were all waiting to see Lloyd coming up.")
.JPG "What a moment!")
.JPG "Lloyd swiming out to be welcomed by eveyone on shore.")
.JPG "Not long after the media got onto Lloyd for interviews and photos.")
.JPG "Reporters from all around the country.")
.JPG)
.JPG "Proud parents, Marie and Russell.")
.JPG "A happy ending for The BioSUB Project.")
.JPG "This is our precious Biocoil. It is scrubbing Lloyd's CO2 and releasing Oxygen, the famous procedure of photosynthesis.")
.JPG "View of the Biocoil from a 'distance'!")
If
you feel like having a chat sometime this week I know
someone that would be very
happy to have a chat with you too! For the next two weeks Lloyd will be
looking forward to any kind of social contact from above to keep
him company. So feel free to come to 'The Pit',
last minute sponsors on board solving major challenges. Lloyd
would be counting on the condensed water on the walls for some
drinking water if it wasn't for
for the perfect communication
device we came up with
have done a
great job in helping us build the Biocoil and grow some algae.
Now things will get serious as they are here to examine what a
(great!) job we have done and take over. The students will build
the real Biocoil, the one that will support Lloyd underwater. We
will then transfer the algae solution that we have been growing
all this time to the new Biocoil and there's the oxygen that
Lloyd will need in his habitat.
.JPG "That's how it all starts: with a 15ml algae solution!")
.JPG "Then you need a few smart high school kids specialising in algae from Idaho, USA.")
.JPG "They only need the materials and in a matter of a few hours you will have the finished product.")
.JPG "They are great to watch, working as a team to get the best result.")
.JPG "A big bucket for the algae to swim around in and an aluminium frame for the coil to sit on.")
.JPG "This is it!")
and is ready for the big day! This is your
chance to have a good look at it, climb inside and make yourself
at home before we sink it to the bottom of ‘The Pit’. This is
going to be the home of Lloyd Godson for a period of up to 2
weeks! It is also
Tooley ’05 and Andrew Cummings ’05 at
a NASA sponsored conference. That research looked at the effects
of plants and flowers on mood, cognitive performance and
creativity. 
