Connor Firmender

What can easily be mistaken for an extraterrestrial spacecraft, the U-Boat Worx submarines depict a promising future for adventures beneath the sea. Founded in 2005 by Dutchman Bert Houtman, UBW set its course to innovate on crafts that had previously been used mostly for research and military purposes. Submarines seemed to only be available to […]

A few days ago, we had the pleasure to welcome our very first guest on the SeaPod! Patti Zanin won our overnight giveaway on September 21st at the Day One Global Launch Event. Patti is very familiar with our beloved sustainable mindset as she is managing business for Sprout.AI Solutions, which is an indoor vertical […]

Connor and Arianna recently joined JC who is the Director of Reef2Reef Foundation at their protected marine park. At their marine park is a coral garden with hanging trees, Reefballs, and they are testing Mineral Accretion Technology with the support of Coralive. Arianna is our intern from Arizona State University, but the intern title does […]

We finally got our clay 3D printer setup and made some test prints! This 3D printer will be used to print the coral habitats for our 3D Printed Coral project to help regrow coral reefs all around the world! These habitats will act as a safe place where we can plant coral polyps so that […]

We are moving closer to getting our 3D printed coral habitat project rolling. The 3D printer that we are going to be using is able to print with a clay material instead of traditional plastic filament so we can be sure not to harm the water by putting more plastic in the oceans.The clay needs […]

We are creating 3D printed coral habitats with our new 3D printer that is able to print a clay material as opposed to a traditional plastic filament. The clay is safe for the ocean and provides a porous surface to help encourage coral growth.One of the things about working with clay is that it has […]

One of the big ambitions that we have is the 3D printed coral project that we are working on. Our goal is to be eco-restorative as much as possible and since coral reefs are sort of like the Amazon of the sea, we knew it was going to be important to us to do our […]

Connor took us along on a beach cleanup that he recently went on with some of our partners, Reef2Reef and PanaSea. They took a boat to a small island here in Panama and spent the day cleaning up trash that has washed ashore over the years.You can see in the video below that the amount […]

Biodiversity AI is one of the coolest emerging technologies that we are really excited about. This tech will allow us to view and monitor the biodiversity in the area so that we can see how things change and grow over time. The AI will be able to identify species that are in the area and […]

Connor is coming to us from the factory with an update on the assembly of the first EcoPod roof. We previously had an update from Grant about the progress of the outer ring and now we are making progress on the center portion which will have more utility than just a normal roof.To start, we […]

The first SeaPods and EcoPods that we will launch will be floating on our TriPod base. The outriggers will sit about a meter below the water but the entire structure will be floating. These homes don’t have a propulsion system so we have to use an anchor below each outrigger to keep them in place.These […]

Our original Manta project has taken a bit of a turn in a different direction, and we have been making good progress on it so far. The ASTRO(Autonomous Surface Transport & Recycling Operations) ASV(Autonomous Surface Vessel) has some pretty important differences from the original Manta idea.There are two main parts of the ASTRO name. The […]

Here we have our new ROV in action. We’ve been really excited about this collaboration with QC, and after unboxing, we couldn’t wait to get to grips with the controls and give our little ROV a test-dive. Our team is testing the ROV in the pool in order to get familiar with the controls and […]

It’s a beautiful day here, and we’re very excited to be unboxing our new ROV, or underwater drone. We feel especially thankful to QC, who have agreed to partner with us and have provided this ROV. Our plan is to build upon this and scale up to a fleet of ROVs that can be used […]

Continuing with our heavy commitment to having a positive impact on the ecosystem and leaving things better than we found them, we wanted to develop a project that can help keep the oceans clean and safe for the local marine life. The Aquacycler project is a big step toward actively cleaning the oceans on a […]

One of the exciting projects that we have been working on is our Driverless Boat project. Similar to the way that Tesla and Uber have been developing driverless cars and trucks on land, we are working on a boat that can drive itself to your destination while you sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. […]

A common question that we get is “what is Theft AI?” Essentially, it is a security system that can watch the surrounding areas near your SeaPod and identify unknown boats or objects that are approaching your home. Similar to a neighborhood watch program on land, the Theft AI will keep an eye on your surroundings […]

The Aquascan project that we are developing will be an incredibly valuable tool for us here at Ocean Builders as well as many other companies around the world. The goal of the Aquascan project is to create detailed maps of the seabed floor, starting in the areas where our SeaPods will be deployed, and then […]

One of our goals here at Ocean Builders is not to simply be eco-friendly, but to be eco-restorative meaning that we want to help restore the ecosystems in our oceans. One of the projects that we will use to track the progress of the biodiversity restoration that is happening around the SeaPod is our Biodiversity […]

Although our goal here at Ocean Builders is to build homes, our priorities lie in doing so in a sustainable and even restorative manner for our oceans. One of the biggest goals that we have is restoring existing coral reefs and promoting the growth of new corals, both around the physical SeaPod locations as well […]