(relaxing music)
- [Tyler] To be able to be doing science while you're out
there on the surfboard surfing down the face of a wave,
it's just such a fleeting moment.
It's incredible to actually be able to do it.
(upbeat music)
- A Smartfin is a surfboard fin.
You clip it on the bottom of your board
and you go out for your surf session.
It has technology that measures ocean pH salinity,
ocean temperature, and very detailed wave characteristics.
So there will be an enormous amount of data.
The reason these parameters are important is because
they are shifting directly as a result of climate change.
We get detailed information about the deep ocean
but very limited accurate information about the near shore.
Satellites can't be really accurate
with data in that narrow zone.
And the other way is ocean buoys
and they're just not deployed at the coast.
Bingo, Smartfin can fill that gap.
- Collecting oceanic data is a very
time consuming, expensive process.
This is like, you just need to know how to surf.
The data moves from your fin to your phone via Bluetooth.
And then from your phone it goes up to our servers
where everything's processed.
I had to develop sensors that don't affect the surfboard.
Nobody's gonna surf a fin that is not a standard foil.
Aside from that LED right there that's blinking
that tells you that there's like
some sort of technology in there,
you wouldn't know the difference.
So we've got a test tank set up now.
And we're just trying to look at the precision
and accuracy of the, um, instrument itself.
Things are looking pretty promising.
As a scientist it's pretty exciting to be able to get data
over these different time and space scales.
I mean the fact that you can go out and surf
and contribute to understanding
what's actually happening out there is incredible.
- I'm not a surfer, I know nothing about surfing.
I know I look like a surfer, but I'm not.
Surfers are very influential
and care deeply about the environment
and want to be talking about it.
So Smartfin is just a tool to do that
in a more concrete way.