Week 5 Day 3

The big news for today is that we got a proper bit to drill into the Otter Box and we also picked up some silicon sealant (the stuff used to seal up aquariums) to fill up the bits of hole that weren't stuffed with wires. It ain't pretty, but it got the job done.

We also got a new member of our team. She is a TAMS student here at UNT named Prathibha Juturu and will be helping us with some of the environmental and ecological aspects of the project. To get her involved we started her off taking over the task of collecting the sensor readings from our table top artificial stream. She will be putting together the tables we post and the blog and will also start building a spreadsheet so we can do some data analysis. One part of her assignment will be to help us track down research to explain the observed changes we see in our stream. That will help us determine if the stream is a healthy ecosystem and will also help us determine if our sensor data is accurate.

	pH	DO	Temperature	# of Fish
Tank 1	8.24	7.3	20.33	2
Tank 2	8.27	7.2	20.37	1
Tank 3	8.32	6.8	20.35	1
Tank 4	8.24	7.4	20.3	12

Something to celebrate! No more missing fish! 16 fish!

Lori, Joe and I are more or less just working on assembling different parts of the research paper at this point so that doesn't make for very exciting blogging.

In other news, although the probes we need to complete this assignment aren't in yet, the camera that we will use in next years project is in. It will make things much easier with that project because it is already equipped with two axis servos that allow for  355 degrees of rotation. It is waterproof, which is a bonus. Finally, it is already equipped with wifi and has existing software to allow it to be controlled over the internet. That essentially means that project is done. All that needs to be added is a way upload the recorded video stream to a server that can store it and creating a website that allows classrooms and researchers to observe the tanks (assuming you don't want to just use the built in one the company provides.)

Week 5 Day 2

Today was not really a break through sort of day. It was more of a "quiet progress" sort of day. I started out the morning finishing the connector pins and Yixin has been making steady progress on the circuits for the sensor clusters. We are at a stand still on that, however, because the additional probes have not arrived from Atlas yet. Apparently they had some issues with the temperature sensors so they are holding up the whole order. Sadly, we already have three of those laying around here so that was mostly unnecessary.

Jennifer was kind enough to go pick up our Otter Boxes so we could get started.  We are going to use Loctite silicon sealant to fill the gaps and seal up the holes after we pass the wires through but just got approval to go buy it so that will  have to wait. We are also a little concerned about heat build up. We toyed with the idea of putting in a fan but couldn't think of a way to do that and still keep the box water tight. I floated the idea of a glycerin-based counter current heat exchange system but that seems excessive. Besides, Joe talked to Yixin and he said all the components we are using should function fine all the way up to 60 C (140 F) so, even though it gets awfully warm here in Texas, we should be ok.

I know what you are thinking... Why did you go to the trouble of getting waterproof boxes and then IMMEDIATELY cut a hole in the bottom. Well, I'll tell you. The hole doesn't much matter. Once we pass the wires through that hole we are going to seal it up tight with silicon. Just in case it leaks, though, we put it in the bottom. That way any water that finds it's way in can find a way right back out instead of pooling in the bottom. The real reason we needed this box is so that it had a lid that would let us access the hardware inside in case we needed to flash the Arduino again or replace a component but still stay water tight. Make sense now?

When we weren't drilling or brainstorming about the sensor cluster we have been hard at work on our computer. Joe is putting together our poster. Lori is working on the lesson plan and activities. I have been going through the research and tinkering with my sections of the research paper. So, plenty to do but not much of that really makes for interesting photos. Here are some for you anyway...

For those of you following what are fish are doing with baited (get it?) breath, here is an update.

	pH	DO	Temperature	# of Fish
Tank 1	8.40	7.1	20.35	1
Tank 2	8.34	7.3	20.46	1
Tank 3	8.31	7.7	20.39	1
Tank 4	8.43	7.7	20.28	13

Nothing unusual with these observations considering we are developing a trend with losing fish. We are now down to 16 fish for all 4 tanks. Tanks 1-3 are harboring 1 fish each, in 2 of these tanks we found a couple large fish. Most fish continue to congregate in tank 4 which has no large fish.