(Aquatic noises)
(水中發出的聲音)
So this video was taken at Aquarius undersea laboratory four miles off the coast of Key Largo, about 60 feet below the surface. NASA uses this extreme environment to train astronauts and aquanauts, and last year, they invited us along for the ride. All the footage was taken from our open ROV, which is a robot that we built in our garage.
這段影片 是在水瓶座海底實驗室所拍攝的 實驗室離基拉戈海岸有四英里 大約在海面下60英尺 美國太空總署利用這種極端環境 來訓練宇航員及深水操作員 去年,他們邀請我們一起來一探究竟 所有鏡頭皆由我們的開放式的 ROV 所拍攝 它是我們在車庫做出來的一個機器人
So ROV stands for Remote Operated Vehicle, which in our case means our little robot sends live video across that ultra-thin tether back to the computer topside. It's open source, meaning we publish and share all of our design files and all of our code online, allowing anyone to modify or improve or change the design. It's built with mostly off-the-shelf parts and costs about 1,000 times cheaper than the ROVs James Cameron used to explore the Titanic. So ROVs aren't new. They've been around for decades. Scientists use ROVs to explore the oceans. Oil and gas companies use them for exploration and construction. What we've built isn't unique. It's how we've built it that's really unique.
而 ROV 是遠程遙控機器人的首字母縮寫 在這裡就是指我們的小型水下機器人 將現場的影片 透過極細的繩子 傳送到船上的電腦 來源是公開的,也就是說我們會 發布並共享所有我們設計的檔案 以及網路上的密碼 讓所有人都能修改 改善或改變這個設計 大部分影片都是現成的 而且成本大概比詹姆斯·卡麥隆 用來探勘鐵達尼號的ROV 還便宜 1000 倍 其實 ROV 不是一項新發明 它們已經存在幾十年了 科學家利用 ROV 來探索海底世界 石油天然氣公司也用它們來探測 及設廠 我們所做的並不特別 我們如何製作的才是重點
So I want to give you a quick story of how it got started. So a few years ago, my friend Eric and I decided we wanted to explore this underwater cave in the foothills of the Sierras. We had heard this story about lost gold from a Gold Rush-era robbery, and we wanted to go up there. Unfortunately, we didn't have any money and we didn't have any tools to do it. So Eric had an initial design idea for a robot, but we didn't have all the parts figured out, so we did what anybody would do in our situation: we asked the Internet for help. More specifically, we created this website, openROV.com, and shared our intentions and our plans For the first few months, it was just Eric and I talking back to each other on the forums, but pretty soon, we started to get feedback from makers and hobbyists, and then actually professional ocean engineers who had some suggestions for what we should do. We kept working on it. We learned a lot. We kept prototyping, and eventually, we decided we wanted to go to the cave. We were ready.
所以我想跟大家很快地說明一下 一切是如何開始的 幾年前,我和我朋友艾瑞克 決定要一起探索這個位在 內華達山麓的水下洞穴 我們聽到有關遺失的金子故事 發生在掏金時代的搶案中,我們想要去那 可惜,我們沒有錢 也沒有任何工具去做這件事 所以Eric想了個點子,是關於機器人的初步設計 但我們沒有解決所有的問題 所以我們做了在這個情況下,大家都會做的事 我們在網路上尋求幫助 更特別的是,我們製作了這個網站 openROV.com 並分享我們的目的與計劃 一開始的幾個月,只有 Eric 跟我 在論壇上互相討論 但很快的,我們開始收到回應 來自於製造業者及愛好者 然後是真正專業的海洋工程師 對於我們該做的事給了些建議 我們持續努力,我們學到很多 我們堅持製作原型,然後最終 我們決定去那個洞,我們準備好了
So about that time, our little expedition became quite a story, and it got picked up in The New York Times. And we were pretty much just overwhelmed with interest from people who wanted a kit that they could build this open ROV themselves.
所以那時我們的探險變成了特別的故事 並且被紐約時報報導 我們幾乎被這樣一群人給淹沒了 他們對這個開放式的ROV的工具組很感興趣 這樣他們就可以自己製造ROV
So we decided to put the project on Kickstarter, and when we did, we raised our funding goal in about two hours, and all of a sudden, had this money to make these kits. But then we had to learn how to make them. I mean, we had to learn small batch manufacturing. So we quickly learned that our garage was not big enough to hold our growing operation. But we were able to do it, we got all the kits made, thanks a lot to TechShop, which was a big help to us, and we shipped these kits all over the world just before Christmas of last year, so it was just a few months ago. But we're already starting to get video and photos back from all over the world, including this shot from under the ice in Antarctica. We've also learned the penguins love robots. (Laughter)
所以我們決定把這個計畫放到Kickstarter 而當我們這麼做時 大約在兩小前內我們募到了目標金額 突然之間有了錢去生產這些裝備 但我們必須去學習如何製造 我指的是,我們必須學習小量的生產 我們很快的發現到我們的車庫 不足以支撐我們擴增的營運 但我們有辦法做到,我們製造出這些設備 非常感謝Techshop,幫了我們很多 然後我們將這些裝備送至世界各地 就在去年聖誕節前 也就是幾個月前 我們已經開始收到 從世界各地拍攝的影片和圖片 包括這張從南極洲冰下所拍攝的影像 我們還發現企鵝喜歡機器人 (笑聲)
So we're still publishing all the designs online, encouraging anyone to build these themselves. That's the only way that we could have done this. By being open source, we've created this distributed R&D network, and we're moving faster than any venture-backed counterpart. But the actual robot is really only half the story. The real potential, the long term potential, is with this community of DIY ocean explorers that are forming all over the globe. What can we discover when there's thousands of these devices roaming the seas?
所以我們持續在網路上公佈這些設計 鼓勵所有人自己打造機器人 這是我們可以完成的唯一方法 借由開放式資源,我們已經建立了 這個分散式的研究與設計網路 我們的進展比其他 有投資金支持的競爭者還要快 但機器人只是故事的其中一半 真正的潛力,真正長期的潛力 是這個DIY的海洋探索社群 遍布世界各地 我們能發現什麼事物 當有成千上萬的裝備 漂流在海洋中時?
So you're probably all wondering: the cave. Did you find the gold? Well, we didn't find any gold, but we decided that what we found was much more valuable. It was the glimpse into a potential future for ocean exploration. It's something that's not limited to the James Camerons of the world, but something that we're all participating in. It's an underwater world we're all exploring together.
所以你大概會猜想:那個洞穴中 有找到金子嗎? 我們沒看到半點金子 但是我們覺得我們因此而發現的東西 比金子更有價值 即一窺海洋探索 潛在的未來 這不再是只有詹姆斯·卡麥隆可觸及的領域 而是大眾都可參與其中的事情 這是一個水底世界 我們一同去探索
Thank you.
謝謝
(Applause)
(掌聲)