Alexis Base of Boynton Beach enjoys going to Ocean Inlet Park
with her family. The eighth-grader’s latest science project focuses on using
autonomous underwater vehicles to recognize and potentially harvest
non-native lionfish, which damage Florida’s reefs and the native fish populations.
Willie Howard/The Coastal Star
By Willie Howard
In today’s world, divers help control invasive lionfish on South Florida reefs by spearing them, handling them carefully and bringing them home for dinner.
Middle school student Alexis Base of Boynton Beach envisions a more high-tech system for controlling lionfish.
She’s developing an image-recognition program that would allow autonomous underwater vehicles, or AUVs, to recognize — and possibly capture or kill — invasive lionfish on Florida’s reefs.
Alexis, 13, of Boynton Beach, is an eighth-grade student at A.D. Henderson University School on the campus of Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, where she studies ocean engineering.
Her lionfish image-recognition project idea recently won first place in computer science, excellence in marine biology and a host of other awards at the Palm Beach Regional Science and Engineering Fair. Her project advances to the state science fair in Lakeland in late March.
“Alexis chose a project involving an invasive species to Florida to help solve this intense problem,” said Suzette Milu, a middle school science teacher at A.D. Henderson. “The cool thing is she not only followed the science method taught in all schools but learned to use software to design a model camera to carry out her hypothesis and further research.”
Her science fair project focused on using AUVs to recognize lionfish by comparing them to stock photos of lionfish using Google image processing.
She found that the Google system was able to correctly identify her lionfish photos 67 percent of the time and was able to identify lionfish in videos 13 percent of the time.
Her conclusion: There’s still work to be done on lionfish image recognition, but she believes there is potential for using AUVs to track down lionfish in places that are hard for humans to reach — such as the bottom in 300 feet of water.
Alexis began thinking of how to use AUVs to control nonnative fish when one of her instructors explained the problem of reef-invading lionfish — fish transplanted from the Pacific and Indian oceans that prey on more than 70 Florida native fish and invertebrates, including yellowtail snapper, Nassau grouper and parrotfish.
Alexis is not new to submersible technology.
As a member of A.D. Henderson’s underwater robotics team, she competed with fellow students in a national underwater robotics competition last year with an ROV (remotely operated underwater vehicle) the size of a shoebox that was required to swim through hoops, open a gate and pick up objects on the bottom.
“Alexis is passionate about science and in the past two years has grown to be a leader and mentor to many students,” Milu said.
She writes programs in the ROBOTC language and learned about three-dimensional design during the Tech Garage summer program at FAU.
“When she talks to me, it’s like another language,” said Alexis’ mom, Michelle Base. “We’re very proud of her.”
Alexis’ sister, Hailey, a sixth-grader at A.D. Henderson, is no slouch in the science department either.
Hailey’s science fair project, focusing on the gregarious nature of Atala caterpillars, won fourth place in zoology at the Palm Beach County science fair. She concluded that juvenile caterpillars are more social than their adult counterparts.
Alexis hopes to continue developing her lionfish image-recognition project if she is accepted to FAU High School next year.
She hopes to earn college credit while attending high school at FAU, finish her undergraduate degree by age 18, and go to work for Lockheed Martin or Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute, where she already has taught other students as part of the Sea Perch underwater robotics program.
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