Objectives for Week of October 30-November 2

Hello all,

This week, I have two objectives:

1. Get survey results. I tried my best to make posters and get people to take the survey. On Thursday, I will determine the impact the survey will have on the system, which may be no impact.

2. Finish 1/2 of the prototype. I understand that it's a very arbitrary number, but I plan on halfway being finished with the tubing, rope, and frame

The Week of October 23-26

Hello everyone,

I apologize for not writing an end of the week post last week. I was very busy and once I finally wrote it, it glitched and deleted the post.

This week was both productive and not productive. My objective was only to finish the prototype design. That has not entirely happened because the survey is still getting results.

However, I can still work on the principal parts of my design, since many parts are dependent of the survey results. This is the prototype thus far:

For now, I can build what is shown here. The only things that will change is possibly things being added. I have a lot of work I can do. For plants, I have decided to use basil, baby greens, and snow peas. The students from another part of Greengineering, aquaponics, found that plants will use what there is. In other words, there is little difference from plant to plant when doing hydroponics, except for plants that have low tolerance for water. Below are pictures of me making the tubes.

In the tubes are five holes. One for water, the other four for plants. It is sealed with foam and superglue on one end, while the other end is open. Inside is gutter foam. Eventually, I will plant my seeds in here and keep it somewhat submerged in water to simulate growing conditions.

I'll keep you posted,

Ben

Objectives for Week of October 23-26

Hello from Greengineering,

My objectives for this week are as follows:

1. Finish the prototype design. This is the only objective. There is more to it than just designing. I still have to aquire materials and figure out how to build the system, especially making it solar powered.

That is all. I am hoping that by setting just one objective, I will meet my goals more easily.

Thanks for reading,
Ben

Agenda for October 16 to 19

Happy (tired) Monday,

This week, I am going to accomplish two things:

1. Finishing the prototype design. I can only do this once my survey has received a sufficient number of responses. Ms. McKinney has told me that she would like to put up signs with my survey URL herself. Her cafe, her rules. So hopefully within the next week or two, I will get some input on the idea.

2. Starting the build. Even though the survey is incomplete, I can still start making the concrete parts of the prototype. I know that it will use tubing, so I can set that up. There is a lot of work to be done.

I will be writing about the results of this week this Thursday.

See you next time,
Ben

This Past Week for October 10-12

Hello everyone,

At the beginning of the week, I had two objectives:

1. Getting approved for my independent study in Greengineering.

2. Administering my completed survey to people who work in the Tiger's Loft and those who go there.

As of now, I have finished writing my independent study proposal and I just need to proofread it, then send it to the right people. I have decided I will make a sign and hang it up in the Tiger's Loft so that people can take the survey on their phones while waiting in line for food. Today, I printed that sign from the school's amazing Graphic's Department. I brought a copy to the Tiger's Loft to make sure the director liked it, but the classroom was locked and deserted, so I assume that there was no class today. I will be trying again on Monday.

However, I am finalizing my prototype design. There are a few parts still undetermined since the survey addresses them, but the prototype can still be built, just not used for a final design until the survey is complete.

See you next week,
Ben

Agenda for October 10-12

Good day,

For my blog, I am going to have a new schedule. Each week, I will have two posts. The first, this one, which addresses what I aim to accomplish for this week. The second, which addresses what I have accomplished by the end of the week.

This Monday was Indigenous People's Day, so there are only three days of class this week. For this week, I am going to be focusing on two main objectives:

1. Getting approved for my independent study in Greengineering. Currently, I am attending Greengineering, but I am not approved for receiving credit for taking the class. However, once I fill out a lengthy form and submit it to the department head, I can get my credit for the class.

2. If I finish that early enough, I will work on administering my completed survey to people who work in the Tiger's Loft and those who go there. Once that is complete, I can finalize my prototype plan and start building it.

I expect to finish objective #1 and start on objective #2. If all goes well, I will finish them both.

Until next time,
Ben

Prototypes

Good day,

The past week has been a bit toned-down. On Tuesday there was no class and on Wednesday I was absent. Because of this, I have only made three prototype designs. I originally planned to have five, but time ran out.

Alpha-HydroLoft (AHL):

This system yields 30 plants, and it uses plastic bottles. However, it will be difficult to utilize the plants with all the rope that would hold the bottles and many of the plants would have little room to grow. There is also a lot of wasted space.

Beta-HydroLoft (AHL):

This system yields 20 plants. It is the simplest of all the systems and would be somewhat easy to construct. The main downside is a low yield.



Gamma-HydroLoft (AHL):

This system is the most efficient, and somewhat easy to build. It yields 45 plants. The main issue is that you wouldn't be able to see the interior of the system. Other than that, this is near-perfect.

Note: The tubes are funky-looking in the diagram because I couldn't get the angle correct

Next Monday, I will have a short blog post outlining my plan for the week.

Thanks for reading,
Ben