Difference between revisions of "Team:Newcastle/Results"

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                 <p class="about-para">Once the project idea was finalised, the team began looking for cheap, efficient and standardised methods for growing plants in iGEM. The hope was that such an item existed that would meet these specifications as well as being a closed container to prevent contamination and also providing a high throughput of plants. It was soon established that such an item did not exist to meet our specifications. Therefore, to combat this issue, it was decided that the best way forward would be to design our own hydroponics system. This would allow us to grow large amounts of Arabidopsis in a controlled setting for the purposes of our project. Several team members were assigned to this “sub-project”.</p>
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                 <p class="about-para">First measurements taken from the LED's was when they had the 'rainbow' function loaded. Meaning the lights cycled through the colours of a rainbow. We applied this test so we could determine which colour gave the highest Lux. Which established that purple is the 'optimal' colour to use peaking at 1100 lux, confirming what our human practices has revealed when visiting various hydroponic facilities.</p>
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                 <p class="about-para">Before getting hands-on in building the system, the team as a whole established a few design parameters. For example, the system needed to be cheap and easy to build from scratch. This is so future iGEM teams are able to construct the system for their own needs and even build upon our design, as necessary. Additionally, the system must be versatile, open-source and easily adapted for various conditions such as light intensity and wavelength. By adopting such an open and adaptable design the intention is that the end-user is able to effortlessly match the system to their needs, without getting entangled in streams of code.</p>  
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                <p class="about-para">Next we loaded the Arduino with a programmed in 'purple' colour. This measurement stabilised at roughly 1300 lux. Leading us to believe we could tweak this light level even more. therefor we tried different preset colours; Blue, Green, Red, White, Blue proved to be the highest. Realising that the LED's manage colours by producing different quantities of Blue, Green and Red light we figured we may be able to create an optimum between these colours hopefully improving on the preset Blue. Which meant we couldn't use a preset library and would have to define the light levels of the primary colours manually.</p>  
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                <p class="about-para">Several weeks were spent modifying the design until a design was found that met all the above criteria, the specifications of the design can be seen below.</p>
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                 <p class="about-para">Before starting we defined the brightness of each colour as an 8 bit integer (265 light levels). The most obvious place to start was to turn all the primary colours up to 265. Giving white light which performed worse than the preset Blue and white. Therefor we created purple via Blue, Red: 265. Which also proved to be less than the preset blue. Figure 1.0 show the results from these measurements.</p>
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<p class="about-para">Therefor thinking that the preset Blue was actually our maximum we attempted one more test. Holding Blue at a constant 265 but varying Red from 0-265 and plotting the results. We discovered that there is a peak Lux peak when the Red is at a light level of 129. Next we tried Blue:265, Red:129 and varied green from 0-265. Which appeared to have a detrimental effect on the light intensity. Figure 1.1 shows the relationship between these colours</p>
  
 
 

Revision as of 14:20, 20 September 2018

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LUX LEVELS

First measurements taken from the LED's was when they had the 'rainbow' function loaded. Meaning the lights cycled through the colours of a rainbow. We applied this test so we could determine which colour gave the highest Lux. Which established that purple is the 'optimal' colour to use peaking at 1100 lux, confirming what our human practices has revealed when visiting various hydroponic facilities.

Next we loaded the Arduino with a programmed in 'purple' colour. This measurement stabilised at roughly 1300 lux. Leading us to believe we could tweak this light level even more. therefor we tried different preset colours; Blue, Green, Red, White, Blue proved to be the highest. Realising that the LED's manage colours by producing different quantities of Blue, Green and Red light we figured we may be able to create an optimum between these colours hopefully improving on the preset Blue. Which meant we couldn't use a preset library and would have to define the light levels of the primary colours manually.

Before starting we defined the brightness of each colour as an 8 bit integer (265 light levels). The most obvious place to start was to turn all the primary colours up to 265. Giving white light which performed worse than the preset Blue and white. Therefor we created purple via Blue, Red: 265. Which also proved to be less than the preset blue. Figure 1.0 show the results from these measurements.

Therefor thinking that the preset Blue was actually our maximum we attempted one more test. Holding Blue at a constant 265 but varying Red from 0-265 and plotting the results. We discovered that there is a peak Lux peak when the Red is at a light level of 129. Next we tried Blue:265, Red:129 and varied green from 0-265. Which appeared to have a detrimental effect on the light intensity. Figure 1.1 shows the relationship between these colours

UP TO
1344
SEEDS CAN BE GROWN
IN HYDROPONICS
APPROXIMATELY
70
KWH OF POWER ANNUALLY
USED TO POWER SYSTEM
PROVIDES UP TO
1700
LUX OF LIGHT
TO GROW SEEDS
CONTAINS
120
INDIVIDUALLY ADDRESSABLE
LOW-POWER LED'S
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