This morning we had a meeting with Dr. Hoeinghaus to catch him up on the project. He was very enthusiastic about the progress we have made with the sensor cluster and is excited that we may be able to start field testing as early as next week (assuming the Otter Box shows up and Yixing banishes the last of the gremlins from the pH probe.) He is also sending us a research grade pH probe so that we can take comparison readings to help us sort out what might be going on with our probe.
We also talked some more about the possibility of setting up streaming video. We discussed some of the difficulties involved in setting up the system as well as looking at the best ways to get around those. It looks like that is still a project that we will push out to next year. We still have a stretch goal this year of putting together a proposal for that project so the UNT RET team can begin gathering the tools and equipment necessary.
After having the general discussion about setting up the streaming video Dr. Hoeinghaus went into more detail about his vision for ways to utilize the wireless sensor network and the possibilities for the streaming video. Once we get the sensor clusters packaged in the enclosure the potential for use is really only limited by your creativity. The most straight forward use is putting a large hanging hook on the device itself so you can hang it off the side of any tank and dangle the probes in for readings. Alternately you could mount it on a post in a lagoon, place it in a bouy, either tethered or free floating, mount it on an R/C boat and cruise around... There are any number of deployment methods. One goal for future study would be to find smaller probes to increase the number of areas you could deploy in as well as allowing for better monitoring of microzones in the water. Once the device is deployed and broadcasting the data can be uploaded to the internet with relative ease (assuming there is an internet connection available at or near the site) and then the data is available anywhere. Some of the specific instances Dr. Hoeinghaus referenced when discussing the utility of that level of access involved situations in Brazil where a test site might be a three hour boat ride away from you base, or when roads between you and a test site get washed out. It would also be helpful, and possibly more cost effective, to have team members who were not in the field access the data through the internet and begin crunching numbers.
A final use for the internet access to field date involved sharing a limited data set with schools so they could use real world data in the classroom. This idea ties in with why he is so interested in live streaming video. Dr. Hoeinghaus would like to provide a way for students everywhere to be able to remotely access some of these field sites to see what research is going on in the real world. It might even be possible to do webinars and/or a remote classroom type of situation where high school students could be given a tour of the research sites and then ask questions of the scientists doing the study.
In other news, Yixing thinks he has the problem with the pH probe isolated. It appears there is some interference that occurs when you run the pH probe and the DO probe concurrently. The initial thought he had was that it might be because they are drawing from the same power source. He is going to create a transformer to split the single 5 volt DC output to two channels. If that fails I suggested the possibility of inserting a switching call in the code so that the pH and DO probes would alternate when they are on. The first solution works if the problem is in the power draw on the circuit side. The second solution works if the problem involves the current flow through the probes and the sample water.
We also finished sealing the joints in the table top model. We have a three part solution because we REALLY don't want the water to leak once we started this bad boy up considering it is in a computer lab. We sealed the gaps between the guttering for the riffle and the edge of the tubs with J-B WaterWeld and let it dry. Next, we coated the joint on both sides with Loctite Marine Epoxy and let it set. After that we put a layer of waterproof repair tape over the joint. If it still leaks...well, no one can say it was because we weren't thorough. Tomorrow morning we will clean the gravel, install the pump and fill the system with water. Wish us luck!
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