Profile

Hi! I’m 27 years old and live in Bristol. I really enjoy living here and spend my spare time socialising with mates. I like to keep fit and healthy so I go running and indoor rock climbing.

I love being outdoors and often go hiking and trekking. Last year I trekked for 13 days in the Himalayas and reached Everest base camp (the bottom of the worlds tallest mountain) which was a real challenging but rewarding experience.

I am an engineer responsible for the maintenance and operation of an AUV (Autonomous Underwater Vehicle).

There are are many different types of vehicle that work under the sea, the obvious ones are submarines which have people inside to control them. There are ROVs (remotely operated vehicles) which are unmanned vehicles controled from the surface using a big cable (tether) usually from a ship and are “piloted” and operated by around 5 people. As technology has progressed we are able to operate vehicles without the need of a cable, these range from very small “sea snakes” that can provide camera footage. Sea gliders that can travel huge distances in the water for periods up to 11 months collecting environmental data. And small AUVs which can dive in shallow or costal waters for a few hours at a time. I however work on a more sophisticated AUV which can operate deep in the sea and provide data about the seabed.

One of the things I love about my job is that no day is the same.
I spend some of the year working at sea on a ship that we use to deploy our vehicle. On board I may do things like maintenance, mission planning and data analysis.

When I’m not at sea, I am either working in an office or a workshop. I share an office with a lot of other people all doing different things. I can be involved with setting of contracts to make sure I can buy spare parts; part of safety workshops – ensuring people are aware of the dangerous aspect of working with machines; planning and writing maintenance procedures; and many other things.

As I am responsible for the maintenance of the vehicle as well, I often spend time in a workshop taking things apart and changing the oil or other components. Sometimes we may damage equipment when at sea, when this happens I fix it.

If I win, I would like to use the money to buy some raspberry pi’s or something similar. I would use these in a class/workshop to teach people in schools how to program. We would make simple programs for these circuit boards and make them play tunes, control motors and robots and other exciting things