GPS Tracking Used on Mini Vessels to Track Wind Patterns and Ocean Currents
25 Dec 2017
GPS tracking technology has been used to save lives, track migration patterns of animals, recover lost items, and help numerous people find their way out of the wilderness or around big cities. And GPS fleet tracking helps companies with fleets improve efficiencies, decrease costs, improve productivity, increase profits, and more.
Now it can check another important thing off its list of accomplishments: helping students study wind patterns and ocean currents.
How is it accomplishing this impressive feat? It’s an interesting story.
Students from Saint Stephen’s Episcopal School in Bradenton, Florida are studying wind patterns and ocean currents from their classrooms thanks to two miniature research vessels called Maurick and Kestrel. Both vessels set sail on September 26, 2017 equipped with a GPS tracker that sends information to the students so they can study these patterns.
It’s all part of the International SeaKeepers Society Discovery Yachts Program. This particular voyage marks the second research voyage for Kestrel who set sale on May 14,2017 near Homestead, Florida before traveling through the Gulf of Mexico and arriving in St. Bernards Parish in Louisiana, located on the eastern side of Louisiana’s delta. This voyage lasted 60 days and 22 hours for Kestrel.
The current voyage, being studied by Bradenton area students made a short pit stop in Ormond Beach, Florida where it was collected by Volusia County Beach Safety who, according to instructions on a sign on the mini vessel, contacted Saint Stephen’s Episcopal School after arranging for the vessel to be collected by Dodi Gaines, the biology department chair for local Seabreeze High School.
Educational Passages, the program behind the Kestrel and Maurick launches has launched more than 70 boats as part of its educational programming. You can track the progress of all research mini vessels launched as part of the program by visiting the Educational Passages website.
Ultimately, none of this would be possible without the use of GPS tracking technology. The more sophisticated and efficient GPS tracking technology becomes, the more benefits, like these, we will experience from watching it in action.
Long battery life, energy conserving methods, and outstanding programming has helped to create educational opportunities for students, study migration patterns of animals, find lost tools, equipment, and people (including at-risk populations such as the elderly, young children, and children who suffer from certain medical conditions like autism).
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