From August 11 to 15, 2025, PhD students Parth Sastry and Debarshi Sarkar from the Tandon Lab participated in the Ocean Acoustics Summer in School (OASiS) Bootcamp at Stony Brook University, Long Island, NY. The weeklong program provided hands-on training in designing and conducting underwater acoustics experiments.

The bootcamp gathered graduate students, teaching assistants (returning graduate students and postdocs), and five faculty mentors, including Dr. John Buck, Professor of Electrical Engineering at UMass Dartmouth.

Fig 1: The entire team (missing Dr. Grant Deane). Debarshi stands third from left with Parth right behind him.

The central goals of the bootcamp were to:

  1. Transmit signals using either a circular acoustic source (direction-independent) or a directional sound source from one boat.

  2. Design and deploy an array of hydrophones to receive transmitted signals at a known distance, from another boat.

  3. Analyze the recorded data to calculate the time and direction of arrival of the sound waves.

The program followed a progressive, hands-on structure:

    • Day 1: Teams split into two groups — one focused on building and testing the circuit for the acoustic source in a water-filled tub, while the other designed a cube-shaped hydrophone array.

    • Day 2: Experiments moved to a large water tank at the Marine Science campus, testing single and double hydrophone configurations on wooden mounts.

    • Day 3: The team conducted experiments from two piers in the campus harbor, testing the system in realistic coastal conditions for the first time.

    • Day 4: Full-scale field experiments were conducted in Shinnecock Bay. One group operated the source boat, transmitting acoustic signals from different locations, while the receiver boat remained fixed to capture the signals.

Each evening, participants collaborated at the dorm lobby to analyze the day’s data, calculating arrival times and angles of the received signals. While all students contributed across activities, Parth played a key role in writing data-processing scripts, while Debarshi worked extensively on developing the source signal and circuit system.

The figure below captured throughout the week highlight their active participation on the pier and in the bay.

It was a fantastic opportunity to blend learning, research, and teamwork!