Day 6: Monday's Happy! Blues

By blues, we mean matlab blues. Ethan decided to learn the "language" and I would say he's getting the hang of it.

Proud Coders

Sofar,
We tried to fix the discrepancies between the sensor (to no avail yet), adding the delay time in the reading did not improve the data. Right now we are emailing Northern Widget and see if they can help us on fixing it.

as can be seen, the difference in sensor A and B in three-run cannot be determined yet.

We hooked up a lamp (which is going to be replaced by the pump to test if it will work. The theory is when the sensor recognizes the difference in water pressure it will turn the pump on and off.

lamp is hooked up!

Andrew fixed some bugs that were in the code, and he got the sine wave working to simulate water cycles. In the meantime, we are trying to figure out why the lamp hooked to Adruino keeps flickering on and off during each loop.

Day 5: Data Woes, pt 1

The day began with a hitch when trying to get the BottleLogger to work with my personal computer. After giving up and moving on, the rest of the day was spent collecting data points with our pressure sensors submerged in water. Our first set up for the day led to unreliable data, so we went back to the drawing board and came up with this little beauty.

Look at this tall drink of water right here

I am confident  this "new" system limits environmental variables, and gives consistent measurements. Our sensors, however, disagree.

This is from the "old" system. The correct image to be placed in later.

After a few trials with this "new" system, our data does not match. Each one deviates further from the linear relationship we expect at different depths of the experiment. At this point, we're not sure what's causing this deviation, but our current speculation is that it is a variable unaccounted for with the sensors. Perhaps there's an air bubble involved, or maybe the sensors need to soak for awhile. We don't know. When we return to the project next week, we're going to have to spend our time diagnosing this.

On a positive note, the programming for the project is coming along nicely. I believe I nipped a memory leak in the bud before it became an issue, and we're ready to develop functions for controlling the water pump. On an abstract level, we're nearly ready to run our main experiment.

Here are some bonus photos of Ethan and me building our sensor testing vessel.

Day 4: The sand vessel is out of our hands

We began the day with more cleaning of the glass to help get the sides completely clean of silicone. We also tried a new solvent, acetone, but the effects were minimal and acted more like Windex. Then began using Arduino and programming it to average three readings continuously. To be able to test the pressure sensors we made a good system to measure and keep the pressure sensors at the actual depth and to keep it level. We then took those averages and made graphs to see how far the pressure sensors are off and, how accurate they actually are. When we were talking as a group we decided that we would not want to put the sand vessel back together because of the large risk of leaking or breaking. So we called up some experts in building fish tanks at Aquatic Environments and they told us that they should be able to finish the sand vessel in about a week. To confirm that they would be able to make the sand vessel we took another field trip to the aquarium store and showed them how the vessel actually assembled and they said there should not be a problem.

This is the system we created to work on the pressure sensors 

At  Aquatic Environments 

Day 3: Library morning and progress on Arduino

Good things happened and some bad things happened today. In the morning we learnt how to search for sources and literature pertinent to our group's experiment. That continued with a mystery lunch, just because no one knows who ate what for lunch. A good thing is our new solvent we bought from Menards works great! A bad thing was that Andrew cut his hand on the razor (which did really good job in scrapping the silicone out of the glass). 

Arduino hooked up, pressure sensors are on top of bucket!

We got the setup for arduino (for the automatic pump) working, found some discrepancies between sensor A and sensor B and we graphed this. Fortunately the graph looks to be linear. We compared the measured depth based on the pressure read by the sensor to the actual depth where we placed the sensor.

Graph comparing depth from pressure vs. measured

Too bad the website we needed was down today. But hey! Andrea is here!!! and she really made the difference in moving us along! thanks Andrea!!

Working together sure is fun

To do list for tomorrow: 

Call Adam wondering if he can help us build the tank.

FREE LUNCH WOOO!

Day 2: Field Trip

Today we began by looking at the glass and how the solvent has eaten away at the silicone. We found that the solvent was working well and making it easier for removal. After doing some scrapping we went on a trip to lock and dam 14 to see USGS put rhodamine into the upper part of the lock system. They were doing this to do look at the flow of the water through the dam. After the trip our group went to Menard's to gather tools to help scrape and remove the silicone from the glass. After cleaning the glass we let it sit with more solvent over night. Last we played the hyporheic game where we got to have fun and also learn about many chemicals and how they react in something such as a stream.

Lock and dam 14 with the peeps

Our first trip to Menards

Hyporheic Game!

Day 1: Orientation

Day 1 started with orientation. The goal of which was to introduce the researchers to one another, and break the ice with an activity.

We began work by looking over the work done previously on the projects. This included an overview of the project we are going to work on.

Next we started to take apart a leaking antfarm. The antfarm is essentially a skinny fish tank, glass sealed with silicone, which will be filled with sand or other sediment. The process took most of the day. We used sharp objects to separate the pains of glass, and scrape away all of the silicone we could without strong solvents. The day was wrapped up by coating all of the glass sides in a solvent to be left overnight. Hopefully the silicone will be easier to remove tomorrow.

One lesson learned is to wear work clothes you don't mind getting messy, and to use solvents in a well ventilated area.

Sheiny, Andrew, and Ethan scraping silicone from the glass