The substrate plates set around a wharf or somewhere stable underwater would require no collecting permits. Might even be able to sweet talk Hopkins Marine Station to allow you in so no rec divers accidentally decide to play clean up. That would of course all depend on your diving credentials and your diving team as well.
The animal movement idea sounds good, but it relies heavily on finding a stable kelp forest with little human interaction. Unless you want to deal with that variable. Also you would need to tag your animals to be able to identify and be sure it was actually the same individual. Then you would need to find them. Without that, you can't be sure if that animal came from the rock wall at all or not.
I believe there is a permit requirement for that, because you would technically have to "take" an animal to tag them.
On the other hand, if you just want to do a density comparison of animals found on kelp and animals found on rock walls with relation to the time of the season, that would work out perfectly. No tagging, just observation. So no permits required.
You could then tie in your finds for further hypothesizes; like animal movement.
For that thought, you should take data on both the kelp and rock wall for both seasons. Keep in mind it doesn't have to be the same kelp area. Don't be too specific about your area, if the substrate is similar enough to be considered the same habitat, you'll be able to collect a lot of needed data. If you focus just on one site and one particular location on that site, that tends to lead to a low data collection and ultimately an inconclusive find. (Learned that the hard way on a field quarter).
And I wouldn't knock the MBA idea at all. They're very accommodating to school groups and projects. They do let school groups in for free after all. Intern positions also last for 3 months minimum, so I wouldn't consider your time span too short.
Give them a ring.
