Always on
This project successfully funded on 1st May 2026, you can still support them with a donation.
Exploring Your Local Water: Let's take a dive
Bristol, Bristol City, United Kingdom
Aim
To bring communities closer to their local aquatic environments. Raising funds to sustain a shallow roaming submersible community program.
Ever wondered what ecosystems are living within your local lakes, ponds, reservoirs or rivers? "Exploring Your Local Water" aims to bring communities closer to their local aquatic environments by exploring these waters with a compact submersible.
So often, our experiences of local nature tend towards what we see on land or in the sky, but all of this wildlife depends on the freshwater systems flowing over, through, or around it. However, it's much harder for us to take a peek at what lies beneath, and with as little disturbance as possible. This is where an ROV comes in!
An ROV is a Remotely Operated underwater Vehicle, and this technology can come in all shapes and sizes, from multi-million ocean submersibles that can dive thousands of meters deep, to small table systems suitable for a swimming pool!
Based in the Southwest of England, our plan is to use a shallow ROV to explore local aquatic environments along with local community, wildlife and conservation groups, to both learn more and educate about what lives in our local waters. Our hope to turn this into a larger community program, that residents can join and take parts in surveys exploring what lies just below the surface.
In this project, we are raising funds to support the purchase of a BlueROV2 , one of the most customizable and accessible smaller shallow-water ROVs on the market. Funds will go towards:
- Subsidizing the ROV and the equipment needed to optimize its potential
- Helping maintain the ROV through hardware consumables and software licenses
- Supporting marketing and promoting the community program through local advertising and social media
- Providing transport needs for community groups and organisers to access the events (minibus hire, covering travel expenses)
This program will be led by local earth and ocean science communicator and scientist, Dr. Samuel Mitchell. With a background in earth sciences, and having spent much time outdoors and at sea on research vessels using larger ROVs, Sam has always wanted to bring this technology to communities. His hope is connect more and more people with the wildlife living in our marine and aquatic environments.
By choosing to support this effort, we hope to encourage similar programs like it across the country and elsewhere, further encouraging people to engage more with their local waters, and to help preserve and protect them.
Thank you for your generosity and curiosity!
Funding method
Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made