We spent the better part of the morning working on our lesson plan which we will need to implement this upcoming school year. As mentioned on earlier posts we will utilize an existing template through www.teachengineering.org to keep every groups lesson plan development within the same parameters.
It appears our ebb and flow is now functioning properly. The problem was that there were clay pebbles that were making their way under the siphon and not allowing for the correct pressure difference. Now that we have this under control we can focus our attention on our 2 dispensers and monitoring our biotic factors.
I don't think I mentioned that we can access our data remotely by utilizing tweeter. Basically, Arduino sends the data to our laptop with a program to tweet data every 40 min.This gives us the capability of making real time corrective measures to the conditions of our tank.
We needed a break and went to lunch:) shortly after we met with Dr. Wan and Vardham to discuss the progress and next steps to our project. We are right on schedule-- tank is running (except for the light problem with ebb and flow), tank conditions are stable, design for food dispenser is finalized, and we will not need to control the flow of water. Next steps, finalize pH dispenser, activate control systems and deploy sensor cluster, and finally analyze data and troubleshoot errors. Dr. Wan likes the idea of implementing control systems in our classroom as part of our lesson. I suggested webinar tutorials to kick start activity. For now, our students can reach the advance category of aquaponic project by designing a control system and also foreeing trouble shoot areas of this system.
I spoke to soon about the ebb and flow. We came back to ESSAT this afternoon to find the ebb and flow had stopped working. We had read that getting it to work properly is a tedious task. We took a trip back to Lowe's to purchase a 4" PVC pipe, which Fern drilled random holes into to allow water to drain through, to act as our siphon sleeve. I went to work on the food dispensor. I zip tied a small motor to yesterday's zip tied PVC's which will act as dispenser base. Next I zip tied water container to motor. The water container will house our fish food. Finally I velcrowed dispenser to fish tank lid (recall, we will mount most of our devices to lid as it is securely "zip tied" to tank). Very very siimple assembly, definitely an easy project to do at home with minimal expenses.
We anticipate the food dispenser will drop food on a daily basis. The initial rotational position of bottle will determine the quantity of food dispensed.
Larger diameter perforated PVC is what we added
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