AOW Deep Dive Test

[Nemrod]

I like the twisting the bottle cap on and off, especially if it is a bottle of Ol'Hawk! Nothing more refreshing during a deep dive at 150 or so feet that pure grain alchohol. Yep, you will forget all about being narced and the cold as well. Really warms your innards up nice. Try it sometime. Corona is pretty good too but tends to go flat below 200 feet, darn that. N

 

[c_m_wood]

We had to touch each of our fingers on our left hand with any finger on our left hand in order but touching your nose between each. Can be suprisingly difficult even on the surface. Our wreck dive was far deeper (42m) than our deep dive however.

 

[buckeye_jeff]

I had to do one of those todder toy balls where you put the different shaped pieces in the correct holds while being timed. The only thing is that I did faster at depth then on land. I just figured that meant I should be narced more often.

 

[jeckyll]

We played rock paper scissors (3 games). However, noone was narc'd. At the time I was fairly unhappy as we only went to 75 feet max on our 'deep' dive.

Having since had small narc like effects on a 75 foot dive, perhaps it was deep enough. I wouldn't not want to be an instructor dealing with several narc'd students at once

Bjorn

 

[icantdive55]

I used a kids toy that had various shapes and could only be put together one way. When you opened it up, a bunch of pieces came out, then you had to match the shape of the object to the shape of the hole and insert it back into the toy. It had maybe 8 or 10 different shapes. The pieces were very very slightly positive. Then I would have them do the puzzle again at the safety stop. Another thing I did (not as a narcosis test) was to show them a slate with a strip of red, orange, yellow, green and blue electrical tape at depth. I had them write on their slates the order of the colors they saw. Without the use of a light.

 

[icantdive55]

I had to do one of those todder toy balls where you put the different shaped pieces in the correct holds while being timed. The only thing is that I did faster at depth then on land. I just figured that meant I should be narced more often.

I had the same experiences. Without fail the divers would be slower at the puzzle at their safety stop than at depth. The safety stops on these dives were conducted where the students were in contact with the bottom so that the conditions would be the same, except for the depth.

 

[DiverBuoy]

As this last post pointed out, there are several lessons that are being learned at depth not just the effect of narcosis on cognitive function, but task loading, and color changes. We use PVC pipe with ropes and colored disks - so we can change the order of the disks and ask students to write on their slate what they saw. We also repeat several times on the surface they must check their depth gauge and bottom time every 30-60 seconds - even when completing the assigned tasks. Additionally, we do these tasks not only on the surface (shore) but on a shallow dive so they have a entire frame of comparative reference. Students learn many things about themselves, their bodies, the effect of physics at depth. We also ask them to write down their perceived rate of gas consumption for the same number of breaths - helpful when the computers used show single digit PSI variances.

What I find most interesting is how many students forget to check air and depth once they start to perform the tasks assigned it's the first thing to go. Rare is the student who puts it all together perfectly. For example if they were right about 45 seconds between checks in 25-35 feet of water at 95 feet they might check 1 or 2 times during the entire exercise - which is 2 to 3 times longer between checks, and that is IF they remember to check at all during the task loading.

 

[GDCB]

What if the instructor gets narc'd instead? What prevents that from happening?

Carl

 

[PaulChristenson]

I'm tired of giving the same old tests to demonstate the effeccts of narcosis during the deep dive on the PADI advanced open water course. I've used math problems, write the name backwards, dive table calculations and IQ type "what's the next item in the series" questions. Has anyone done anything different that was good, useful and relevant?

Not relevant, but would be good and useful to the Field of Theoretical Mathematics

Prove Fermat's Last Theorem for odd primes n only
at any depth...



Paul in VT

 

[icantdive55]

What if the instructor gets narc'd instead? What prevents that from happening?

Carl

The dive is over. Nothing prevents narcosis. Ending an instructional dive because of your own narcosis makes a statement in a big way.