The Coral Guard

Bianca

Age 11Ottawa, CanadaFeb 2021

Climate change is making the seas hotter, so coral reefs - where many species of fish live - are dying due to coral bleaching. Many fish depend on coral reefs for shelter, food, or reproduction. When coral reefs die, fish species are forced to search for another coral reef. The Coral Guard helps prevent coral bleaching by emitting cooled down seawater in areas that are too hot for the coral reefs to survive.
The Coral Guard is a robotic fish, biomimicking the Blue Tang and made out of graphene, a strong but very light material. Blue Tangs are native to coral reefs so the Coral Guard will not alert surrounding fish. Some Blue Tangs swim in schools so that is precisely what the Coral Guard does, it swims with many other Coral Guards in its mission to protect the ocean.
Sea water is collected by the Coral Guard and holds it in it’s interior, which acts like a freezer, to cool it down. A thermometer inside the interior reads the temperature of the cooling water. When the thermometer reads 25°Celsius, it sends the cooled sea water to the caudal fin, from where it is emitted into the ocean when needed to cool the unnaturally warming waters. Many coral reefs thrive in waters of a temperature between 23°Celsius and 29°Celsius making 25°Celsius a tolerable temperature. Sprayers at the end of the caudal fin communicate with another thermometer on the exterior. If the thermometer on the exterior reads a temperature higher than 29°Celsius, it orders the sprayers to emit the cooled seawater.
The Coral Guard reads temperatures and emits the cooled seawater near coral reefs with the help of Artificial Intelligence, which identifies the reefs. The Coral Guard helps protect our oceans by preventing coral bleaching damage due to global warming. If we don’t take action, coral reefs may become extinct, causing certain fish species to become vulnerable. The Coral Guard protects our oceans, the coral reefs, and the fish that depend on them!

Little Inventors team says

Bianca, well done for putting such an amazing amount of work and detail into The Coral Guard. You have researched and are very knowledgeable about coral reefs and you have thought innovatively about how to improve their health. You have created a process which is automated to ensure that temperatures do not exceed a certain reading, causing the reefs to remain in a state of optimum comfort. Well done for being so passionate about ocean health, we need minds just like yours! Keep inventing Bianca!