CubanWaterLab ESENFR
Log

Quarter by quarter, since July 2024

Excerpts from the narrative reports submitted by the local section of CubanWaterLab to the University of Havana. Each entry documents what actually happened in the lab, in the bay, and in the Casablanca community.

JUL–SEP2024

First prototypes, straight out of FabAcademy

PhD candidates Alex Manuel Rivera Rivera and Luis Abel Rodríguez de Torner complete their first stay at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and pass the international FabAcademy course. As their final project, Rivera presents a first weather-buoy prototype and Rodríguez a first small-scale wave channel. In parallel, the purchase list for the future FabLab at the Faculty of Physics is finalized.

From July 15 to 20, both teach basic electronics and Arduino at the Physics Summer School to pre-university students, and on August 17 the project reaches national television on the program Observatorio Científico.

Doctoral students during FabAcademy at the Université Libre de Bruxelles.
Fig. 1 — Cuban PhD candidates during FabAcademy, ULB, first half of 2024.
Green 3D-printed buoy hull, fresh off the printer.
Fig. 2 — 3D-printed hull of the first buoy prototype.
Pre-university students working on electronics during the 2024 Physics Summer School.
Fig. 3 — Physics Summer School, July 15–20, 2024.
FabAcademyUniversity outreachNational TV
OCT–DEC2024

The strategic decision: instrumenting the buoys that already exist

Two workshops — at the University of Havana in March and at Espoleta Tecnologías in November — bring together, for the first time, every actor in the bay: the university, Geocuba, the State Group for managing the Bay, harbor pilots, and community representatives. After visiting Geocuba, the team decides to attach the sensor system to the buoys already anchored and authorized in the bay, instead of building buoys of their own from scratch: a decision that greatly simplifies the project's logistics.

The first exploratory study in social sciences also gets under way, and the project is presented at the 4th Mesoamerican Forum on Climate Change and Risk Management.

Group photo of the workshop on scientific tools at the University of Havana, March 2024.
Fig. 4 — Workshop “Introducing scientific tools…,” UH, March 12, 2024.
Group photo of the workshop at Espoleta Tecnologías, November 2024.
Fig. 5 — Coordinating the first in situ trials, Espoleta Tecnologías, November 20, 2024.
GeocubaSocial sciencesMesoamerican Forum
JAN–MAR2025

The buoy goes into the water — and learns to survive

On February 21, 2025, professors and students manually unload 4.5 tons of acrylic sheets that arrived from China. With them, a first sensor system is installed on a real buoy in the bay; weeks later, the temperature sensor's cable turns up cut with a knife. The team reinstalls the system and ties a message to the buoy asking fishers to take care of the equipment.

Professors Stamatios Nicolis and Alexandre Campo (ULB) visit Cuba from March 15 to 25, and the project holds its international “PhD Kick-off” workshop. Fieldwork with the Casablanca community also begins.

Professors and students manually unloading acrylic sheets from a truck.
Fig. 6 — Unloading 4.5 tons of acrylic that arrived from China, February 21, 2025.
Project team aboard a boat, getting ready to board a buoy in Havana Bay.
Fig. 7 — Getting ready to board a buoy in the bay, March 24, 2025.
Group photo of the project's international PhD Kick-off workshop.
Fig. 8 — International “PhD Kick-off” workshop, Faculty of Physics, March 18, 2025.
VandalismCasablancaULB visit
APR–JUN2025

Resilient communication, first meeting with the fishers

The LoRa communication system is tested with 12-volt batteries to withstand the country's systematic blackouts. At ULB, Luis Abel Rodríguez builds a medium-sized wave channel and explores new assembly systems. In Cuba, the team holds its first formal meeting with the fishers at the Casablanca recreational fishing base.

In parallel, three decades of environmental studies on Havana Bay carried out by CIMAB since 1980 are systematized, as a baseline for the project's social-science component.

Wave generator of the channel built at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, with green-colored water.
Fig. 9 — Wave generator of the channel built at ULB, early 2025.
Project team's first meeting with fishers from the Casablanca recreational fishing base.
Fig. 10 — First meeting with fishers from the Casablanca base.
LoRa · 12VCasablancaULB wave channel
JUL–SEP2025

Artificial intelligence sees underwater for the first time

With a cheap camera and very murky water, a modestly trained AI manages to identify, for the first time, a jellyfish and biological colonization (biofouling) in Havana Bay. The project's three PhD candidates in the exact sciences — Alex Rivera, Luis Abel Rodríguez, and Daniela Martínez — formally enroll in ULB doctoral programs.

The CubanWaterLab 2025 Summer School has pre-university students measuring water pollution and identifying microplastics with polarized light, and CIMAB invites the project to present at its workshop “Climate change and women: more vulnerable?”

Underwater frame with AI detection of a jellyfish and biofouling, with recognition bounding boxes.
Fig. 11 — First detection of underwater life using AI: “jellyfish 0.85,” Havana Bay.
Luis Abel Rodríguez presenting the project at the CIMAB workshop on climate change and women.
Fig. 12 — Luis Abel Rodríguez presents CubanWaterLab at CIMAB, September 25, 2025.
AI · visionULB doctorateSummer School
JAN–MAR2026

A break-in, a boarded-up window, and homemade spectrophotometers

The windows of the Physics building, weakened by termites, are left exposed: on March 16 a break-in occurs in the building. With no institutional response forthcoming, the project's own team boards up windows and reinforces doors with the project's own materials, to protect an investment of more than USD 100,000 in equipment due to arrive from Brussels.

Despite this, the science moves forward: new prototypes of a portable spectrophotometer and an AI-equipped microscope, first experiments on the drift of solid pollutants in the wave channel, and 87 surveys completed with Casablanca residents.

Project students boarding up a vulnerable window of the Physics building with acrylic.
Fig. 13 — The team boards up the most vulnerable windows with acrylic, March 17, 2026.
Daniela Martínez-Ortiz calibrating the professional spectrophotometer in the lab.
Fig. 14 — Calibration of the spectrophotometer acquired with project funding, March 30, 2026.
Empty can floating and drifting toward the artificial beach of a laboratory wave channel.
Fig. 15 — Drift of an empty can in the wave channel: asymmetry decides its speed.
Break-in · Mar 16Low-cost spectrophotometer87 surveys
APR–JUN2026

The container arrives at Mariel; the homemade instrument is put to the test

The first container from Brussels reaches the port of Mariel in April. In the lab, calibration of the low-cost, in-house spectrophotometer against the commercial one is completed, and an experiment with copper mesh against biofouling reveals an unexpected chemical reaction — copper chloride — that forces a redesign of the test.

Student Jean Rafael López takes first place at the Physics Student Science Fair with a shadowmetry-plus-AI algorithm for oil-spill stains (more details in Results), and the project's first scientific paper enters peer review. In Brussels, 3D simulations in DualSPHysics confirm what was observed in the Cuban wave channel.

Close-up of a copper mesh covered in blue-green copper-chloride crystals after exposure in the bay.
Fig. 16 — Unexpected reaction: copper chloride on the protective mesh, after 7 days of exposure.
Floating cylinder drifting under wave action in the FabLab-ULB wave channel, with its path marked.
Fig. 17 — Wave-driven drift of a scale-model cylinder, FabLab-ULB channel.
Window reinforced with a panel in the room where the project's wave channel will be built.
Fig. 18 — Another window reinforced with the team's own resources, June 23, 2026.
Container at MarielPaper in review1st place, Science Fair