Howdy all,
Week three with the HOT team has been a great opportunity to network with other marine technicians at the RVTEC conference and participate in biogeochemical sample analysis with the HOT team.
To start this week, I attended Cyber Monday at the RVTEC conference and learned about the IT needs and priorities for the UNOLS fleet. This included presentations discussing IT staffing, OmniSOC security solutions, HiSeasNet, and Fortinet. Monday showed me how important IT and networking experience is becoming for marine techs across various institutions.
The next few days were spent processing and analyzing biogeochemical samples collected from the last HOT cruise. On Tuesday we acid washed sample bottles to prep for the next HOT cruise at the UH Manoa marine center. I was also able to attend an icebreaker event and meet with former MATE alumni and other marine technicians through the RVTEC conference. Wednesday, we processed chlorophyll samples using a fluorometer and uploaded the raw data to a processing spreadsheet. Thursday, we processed particulate inorganic carbon (PIC) samples by dissolving the collected carbon on filters and recording the subsequent CO2 raw data.
To finish the week I was able to attend a serial communications and electronics workshop with Tom Wilson at the RVTEC conference. These workshops were a great introduction to these topics and provided many resources on better learning these topics.
Overall, I appreciated learning about the science that we were contributing to as marine technicians and I enjoyed the opportunity to meet other marine technicians at RVTEC.
Best,
Hunter
