Fishing. With lasers!

The dottirs have landed! This week all of the Finns are up in Westfjords. The schedule has partly consisted of exploring the town, in addition to learning more about digital design at Fab Lab Ísafjördur. On Monday we got to see the final preparations of a new fishing technology, before it did its maiden voyage to the sea. People from the Innovation Center Iceland were hard at work with the fishers to get this thing on the road. Er. Wave?

In addition to the mountain, you may see the other Finns in the photo. Johanna right from the centre in the black coat, Sanna in purple, and Pekka to the far right. Myself as the shadow taking the picture.

The metal rig is fitted with metal tubes housing lasers all around, all of those have microprocessors, which in turn connect to a larger unit that has the energy source and a bigger computer, which connects to yet another computer running the whole show.

The green trawling net at the back is connected to the rig, and the theory is that the lasers at the edges create a funnel that will guide the fish to swim towards the centre of the appliance and into the net.

They left for a 12 hour testing trip the next day, but we still haven't heard the results. It was very cool and exciting though! If the technology works, it would hopefully enable a more environmentally conscious way to trawl for the fish. Having less weight dragging behind the boat should diminish the oil usage, while guiding the fish with lasers would take away the need to drag the huge nets along the bottom of the sea disturbing the ocean floor.

Next we went for an introductory tour of the local university building, Vestri HF.
Amongst others, the local office for Innovation Center Iceland, and Avalanche research center are located in the building. Plenty of artwork on the walls as well, which is always nice! And there were some super interesting creatures around the marine biology department's office!

A spiny fellow.

Is it an onion with teeth? No, it's an anglerfish!

And this concludes our report from the fjord pelted by rogue winds from the hurricane Nicole. Over and out (with Finnish after the break!)

-Antti, Johanna and Sanna-

Suomea alla:




Koko Suomen edustus on tällä viikolla Ísafjördurissa!
Myöhään sunnuntai-iltana paikalle saapuivat Johanna, Sanna ja vieraileva taho, Pekka.
Tällä viikolla olemme tutustuneet kaupunkiin porukalla, ihmetelleet maisemia ja uutta kalastusteknologiaa.

Innovation Center Iceland on valmistanut parin muun tahon kanssa yhteistyössä uudenlaiste teknologiaa, joka saattaisi mahdollistaa luontoystävällisemmän ja energiatehokkaamman tavan nuottakalastaa troolareilla.

Metallikehään kiinnitettyjen laserien avulla olisi tarkoitus ohjata kalat laajemmalta alueelta kohti keskustaa ja perässä tulevaa verkkoa. Tällöin verkkoa ei tarvitsisi vetää pisin merenpohjaa, kuten nykyään ja verkko voisi myös kooltaan olla huomattavasti pienempi. Toiveena olisi näin vähentää öljynkulutusta, sekä estää merenpohjan tuhoutumista troolaamisen seurauksena.

Seuraavana päivänä alus lähti 12 tunnin testimatkalle, mutta emme ole vielä kuulleet tuloksista.

Testiajolle valittiin ihan hyvä päivä, sillä tänään alueella on aika massiivisia tuulia. Ilmeisesti hirmumyrsky Nicolen ansiota.