Our second International Buffet – A Night in Paris was a HIT! The buffet featured foods of France, where the the atmosphere was that of a French bistro one would find walking through the streets of Paris. Thank-you to everyone who came out to support the Ægir Student Association, eat good food, and converse with the students and our guests, and to all the volunteers envolved in making this night possible!

Stay tuned for our third International Buffet, coming up this May. A special thanks to Auður Ósk Aradóttir, owner of Kaffi Ísól, for providing us with the use of her facilities. (chelsea boaler)

The Aquaculture Students visited Hraðfrystihúsið – Gunnvör hf (HG)‘s aquaculture facilities.

HG participates in two main aquaculture projects, outside of their wild fisheries enterprises:
– On growing of captured cod
– Cod farming, from egg to market sized fish

Pens are between 15 and 20 m in diameter, and up to 90 m circumference. Smaller pens contain ~20,000 individuals, where bigger pen hold ~70,000 to 90,000 individuals. When we visited, the average weight of individuals was ~ 800g, where harvesting weight is  just below 3 kg. Challenges associated with this industry includes predation on penned fish by sea birds, most commonly cormorants. Additionally, since cod are bottom feeders, harvesting must be done in such a way as to eliminate or diminish bursting swim-bladders in the fish. This is true for juveniles being transported to the pens, as well as harvesting the marketable fish.

Our visit ended with samples of cod liver, and warm coffee on board one of the vessels. Thank-you to Kristján G. Jóakimsson, director of marketing and processing at HG for the in-class presentation, Barði Ingibjartsson and Eiríkur Ragnarsson for bringing us around the facilities and out to the pens, and to our instructor, Peter Krost, and program director, Dagný Arnarsdóttir, for organizing the outing.

Today, 13 CMM Students went to visit the FabLab (short for Fabrication Laboratory) here in Ísafjörður thanks to Albertína Friðbjörg Elíasdóttir, one of the staff members. Albertína showed us around the lab, pointing out all the equipment and examples of some of the awesome stuff one can create! They have a 3D printer, lazer cutters and sketchers, and a large saw used to create big pieces of work. The equipment is all free to use, and if you’d like to create something, you simply pay for the materials used.

The FabLab uses all free software, like Google SketchUp for their 3D printer. If you’d like to learn how to use the equipment, Inkscape has great online tutorials to encourage the self-learning philosophy of FabLab.

For more information on FabLab, you can visit the Wiki page or Nýsköpunarmiðstöð Íslands. (chelsea boaler)