An Ocean Scientist Explains... Air Deployable Spotter Smart Buoys 

Well done Isabel and team Sofar - love the innovative adoption of "arts and crafts"!!

I've been doing something similar but on land, by throwing away solar sensors to create a LoRa mesh (meshtastic) for wild life monitoring as well as wild fire propagation monitoring. The alternative what I am working with is using the concept of a "samara" or flying seeds, specifically using the idea of a caoba seed to make the devices spin as tell fall and thus transforming down speed to rotational energy, with the result of only loosing two sensors while having thrown about 16 repeatedly without any substancial damage to the solar panels, batts or antenna. The "seed" wing that I'm using is made of cardboard so it disintegrate with a little bit of moisture, and to have them degrade quicker I'm not adding seeds in between two cardboard layers in order to add local plants to the deployment area as well. Exc results during testing.

Amazing video thanks for creating this rugged spotter buoy it's helping us in our XPRIZE Carbon team Angel Sharks

And cardboard has less environmental impact too.