From the boy-in-a-bubble dept…
Australian scientist and undersea adventurer Lloyd Godson has for the past 10 days lived entirely underwater in a tiny house inside the Legoland Atlantis by Sea Life aquarium in Germany. Armed with a bicycle-powered generator, Lloyd declared on his LegoLand blog:
Before the eyes of LEGOLAND visitors I will spend 336 hours in my little 2.5 x 1.6-metre home, non-stop and without surfacing, with 1,300 tropical fish to keep me company. Connected to the outside world by telephone and internet, I will attempt to set a new Guinness World Records™ by generating the largest amount of electricity that has ever been produced by pedalling a bicycle under water.
In addition to the world record attempt, Godson’s very existence in his underwater home is a boon to NASA bioengineer Dennis Chamberland, whose own dream of colonizing the oceans has begun with the Atlantica Expeditions. The construction and bioengineering of the tiny underwater house was a collaborative effort between Chamberland and Godson, whose past undersea habitation project in Australia had a few kinks such as high humidity and high CO2 levels. Every day Godson sends his vital signs and some household statistics to Chamberland via a conversation on Skype. The two expect to come out of the experiment having gathered much more data on how to construct and sustain long-term comfortable undersea dwellings.
Unfortunately, Godson’s world record ambition has been prematurely cut short due to technical difficulties — the special bike-powered generator has broken down. As Godson posted in a facebook update:
Well I just heard from my friend in Denmark that he can’t get the parts he needs to make me a new generator, so it looks like it’s all over rover for the Guinness World Record. Now my focus is on staying here until the 14 days is over and putting a smile on as many faces as possible…including mine 🙂
You can join Lloyd here on his under water adventure right up until the grand finale on 13 April 2010.
