Week 2 Day 1

After a weekend to decompress we are back at work packing in new information that we can take back to our classrooms. The morning start out with everyone getting back in the game mentally and getting organized for the rest of the the week. I started out by taking all the physical papers I have collected so far and putting together a research notebook to help keep myself organized. After that Dr. Fu came in with a new toy for us to learn.

Last week we got our introductions to the Arduino UNO microprocessor and the XBee wireless radio that will form the core of our sensor cluster. These units will store our programs, translate the data we collect and broadcast it back to us in a useful format.

That's all well and good, but how are we going to collect the data in the first place? Well, we got a partial answer for that this morning. We will be using the Atlas Scientific pH stamp circuit and probe kit to gather pH readings from our artificial stream setup.

Pretty snazzy, right? So, we will be taking the Arduino UNO and sticking an XBee shield on it. Then we will use a bread board to connect the pH stamp and probe to each other and the Arduino stack. Tada!

Once we figure out what temperature probe we are going to use we will wire it in the same way. The goal is essentially to make a smaller, more energy efficient, cost effective and water proof version of this commercially available PASCO setup. It would also be nice if the wireless signal had a bit more range... I think we can do it.

That's the new equipment. What is the team working on, you ask? Well, I'll tell you. Joe is finishing up the CAD models of the table top stream model. It turns out that is a good bit harder than anticipated, mostly because of some software issues we are having. He's rolling on it now, though, so we should have something for the blog today. Lori is learning the ins and outs of the PASCO equipment pictured above so she can give me and Joe a crash course on it later. We will use the PASCO system as a control when we test our sensor cluster to make sure we are producing data that is as reliable as a commercial product. I am working on learning about the Atlas equipment and trying to add the 11 commands that it accepts to my mental toolbox so that we can get some code knocked together for our sensors. Lucky for me there is already some sample code that has been produced to make that part of the task A LOT easier.

pH Circuit manual

Sample Code

After I get a grip on that I will be chewing through the hard copies of the research I pulled and looking for relevant information.

Joe's First Draft CAD model 

(It will get better.)

We wrapped up the day with some pretty basic tutorials on how to use National Instruments LabView program. That was pretty much just front loading some vocabulary for a seminar we have tomorrow that will be lead by an NI rep.