Hey All,
Over the past week, Challenger has really earned his spot in the Robot Hall of Fame, as he has gone through a number of obstacles and came out the other side unscathed.

Sadly it has been a very busy week with students coming back to campus, and I haven’t been able to give these achievements the coverage they deserve, so lets take a few steps back to the first week of September and see if I can hit all of the points.
September 6th, 2011: Birth of an Eddy
Back as Challenger was crossing the 2,000 km mile stone and entering the VVIG club (very very important glider club), we also witnessed what we believe to be something truly remarkable: the birth of a solar marine system!

Figure 1: Inertial Oscillation

Figure 2: Mystery Eddy
As the remnants of Hurricane Irene blew through the vicinity of Challenger, we saw a strong inertial oscillation of the currents as it passed. As seen in Figure 2, looking at the sea surface height anomaly we can see how the end of a swirling arm from the edge of the Gulf Stream was in the process of breaking off, resulting in the presence of a warm core eddy surrounded by a number of smaller cold core eddies: thus the birth of a warm core solar marine system!
September 7th & 8th, 2011: THE WALL

Figure 3 Storm Surge
By September 7th, Challenger was bravely fighting its way through what has been one of its most enduring oppositions to date. He was in the midst of a series of storms the literally arced from the eastern sea board of the United States, to the Norther shores of Europe and the United Kingdom. This succession brought about some of the strongest inertial oscillations of the entire mission, where as you can see from the side image, the currents made almost a 180° while nearly doubling in intensity within two surfacings (~15 hours). But we our proud to say Challenger is a tough little robot with a lot of spunk and is truly the definition of the phrase “-do not wait until the end of the storm…learn to walk in the rain”
click here to watch a gif of the storm progress over Challenger.
September 9th, 2011: Crossing the Freeway
After a few days of pounding waves, gale force winds, and unpredictable currents, Challenger continued on its crossing of the freeway of storms. As we crossed the band, the brave glider began drifting a bit out to the west with the overall path of the currents, but was other wise unscathed. As Scott said, every glider has a personality. After the continuing performance by Challenger, we think his personality is along the lines of a cowboy from the wild west or a 4×4 steadily crossing treacherous terrain.

In the afternoon, after analyzing the southwestern drift we decided to start considering a new way point for the near future.
September 11th, 2011: Katia
Over the past 84 days, there has been very few instances where we were scared for the well being of Challenger, this being one of them.. As Hurricane Katia left the eastern seaboard of the United States, she then reared her ugly head in the direction of Challenger. Now he has been through quite a few storms (33 as of this evening), but Katia brought conditions we had not yet experienced.

Figure 4. Wave forecast for Hurricane Katia
Katia not only brought strong winds, shifting currents, and a ton of rain, but also produced massive waves 9m (~27 feet) high and sent them right in Challengers direction. Now as durable as Challenger has proven to be, being tossed from the crest of a 30 ft wave to the trough can really do some damage, but in the name of science and bravery Challenger fought through these perilous conditions and made it out the other side.
September 12, 2011: Cross Roads
Monday morning, after we were free of the intensity we had seen a day earlier, I had noticed we were really continuing on a path in a southwesterly direction. Especially now with the Azores less than 900km away, I thought that we should move the way point east a bit.

Figure 5. Sea Surface Height with Current overlay from ULPGC
By doing so, we could keep ourselves going in a straight line more in the direction of the Eastern side of the Azores instead of taking the scenic rout.
Also Challenger reached yet another mile stone on his journey as he now has the East coast of the United States of America to his west. He is now even with the Northern tip of Maine.
September 13, 2011: Some Beautiful Imagery
After the change of way point, Challenger continued on its way, now gradually cutting back a bit to the east (meaning the change of way point was a success!). We also noticed how much of an effect Katie had on the waters we are exploring. This can be seen below in the drop in surface temperature and salinity in the two profiles.

Figure 6. Sea water Salinity as recorded by Challenger 1

Figure 7. Sea water Temperature as recorded by Challenger 1
As we can see, at Sept. 11th when Katia hit, there was a large mixing event in both Salinity and Temperature which depicts where the storm came through feeding off of the oceans heat and causing the waters to mix.
September 14th, 2011: The Saga Continues
Now that we are all caught up on the many adventures Challenger has bested over the past week, we can look into what the ocean is doing now and return to piloting the glider.

Figure 8. Sea Surface Height with Currents for 9/14
Above, we can see that we are fighting the Northwestern currents from the east side of a cold eddy. Even with the head current and being in the midst of the 33rd storm, Challenger continues to make southern progress on its way back home to the Canary Islands.

Figure 9. Meteorological Imagery for 9/15
Also interesting to watch over the next day or so is the Chlorophyll satellite imagery. With the amount of mixing the waters near Challenger has seen over the past few days, we are due for a large phytoplankton bloom. Already we can see increased activity in our area.

Figure 10. Chlorophyll a with Current overlay for 9/14
Finally, it looks like the way point is good for now as Challenger continues to make gradual eastern progress on its way towards the Eastern side of the Azores. Soon we will have a concrete plan on where we will sail and from there we may make further adjustments.

It has been a long and painful week for Challenger, but after what he’s been though I wouldn’t doubt this brave robot will taste the victory champagne in a few months on the shores of the Canary Islands.
As always, Force, Wind, Sea and Honor
Nilsen & Antonio