jmanning

Drifter Newsletter #15

October 2016

New Rigs

We have been working on an eco-friendly drogued drifter.  It is a star-shaped drogue (made like some of the commercial surface drifters sold on the west c […]

February 2015

New Rigs

Now that  dozens of the new aluminum-framed “Irina” drifters have been deployed, we can assess their performance. The one problem seems to be that, while the  ⅜”  spars do not break, […]

Drifter Newsletter #13

October 2014

New Rigs

As reported last year, our latest surface drifter has an aluminum frame. Dozens of these “Irinas” have now been deployed with varying success but, in […]

<h1>Drifter Newsletter #12
September 2013</h1>
 
<h2>New Designs</h2>
While keeping with the standard size and shape, we continue to modify the surface drifter materials to minimize the cost, effort, and […]

Experiments on the eco-friendly “Dan Drifter”

Thanks to Dan Palance, a summer student at the NOAA lab in Woods Hole, a more eco-friendly drifter has been developed and tested. The “Dan Drifter” is much like the […]

New Developments in 2012
While funding is difficult to come by this year, we have managed to get at least some units in the water after joining forces with a few other groups doing educational/outreach work. As […]

New Drifter Users in 2011
The following institutions have recently joined our efforts to deploy drifters around the country:

UMASS Boston Math and Science Dept
UMASS Boston Environmental, Earth, and Ocean […]

July 2010 New Drifter Designs We have been experimenting with alternative designs this summer in an effort to further reduce the cost and time needed to build surface drifters. Several new prototypes were built and tested in local Woods Hole waters including the: “ Shawn Drifter” which has a 4 by 4 wooden mast and a flotation collar […]

Drifter building and support team We are happy to have a growing drifter support team to help users with various aspects of the operations. While all members of this team participate in nearly all phases of the process, the specific tasks are as follows: Southern Maine Community College Marine Science: Tom Long – supervisor Kara LaLomia – lead drifter […]

Drifter Newsletter #6 February 2010 Drifter Website Update We have made some progress in designing a new website to plot all the drifter tracks and to serve the data but we have not yet released it. It will take the place of the rather cluttered site: http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/drifter/ before the 2010 drifter season gets underway in a few months. […]

Drifter Newsletter #4 December 2009 NOAA’s Adopt-a-Drifter Program This initiative (www.adp.noaa.gov) has similar objectives to ours in that they engage teachers and students. We are considering ways to merge our respective projects in order to share resources. In a proposal recently submitted to NOAA’s Northeast Consortium, we suggested a formal collaboration. The ADP program is already connected […]

November 2009 Satellite Account Setup Our satellite service-provider has recently instituted a new policy.  Those of you  who get billed directly (or plan to get billed directly in the future) now need to fill out a one-time “business agreement form”. If you haven’t already done so and you plan to deploy drifters in 2010, please let me […]