A group of six ocean engineering students at the University of Rhode Island has developed an acoustic device that successfully detects the sounds made by whales and other marine mammals in the vicinity of the Block Island Wind Farm. The invention was created for the students’ senior capstone design class, a yearlong project that requires students to call upon all of the skills and knowledge they learned during their college careers.
The students who developed the device are Drew Adams of Bel Air, Maryland, Jake Bonney of Barrington, Rhode Island, Garrett Connelly of Wakefield, Rhode Island, Max Fullmer of Virginia Beach, Virginia, Luke Puk of Garfield, New Jersey, and Brendan Read of Middletown, Rhode Island. URI Ocean Engineering Professor James Miller was the advisor.
The students call their device MARIMBA or Marine Mammal Monitoring at Block Island Using Acoustics.
Read more at University of Rhode Island
Image: URI engineering students deploy an acoustic device they created for detecting whale sounds near the Block Island Wind Farm. (Photo courtesy of Luke Puk)