Final Blog Post

About

The Offshore Floating Lab is a multi-point temperature taking boat that will take temperature at various points in a lake. Measuring water temperature of lakes is vital for biologists to understand the cause of pollution and study the conditions for harmful algae bloom that kill aquatic life. As our water bodies are huge, one point data is not enough to make assumptions. It is required to sense at various point and collect in order to conduct the study.

Features:

The Offshore Floating Lab can be controlled manually by using a remote control. We can control it to go to any specific location. It can turn left and right and also move forward and backward. The temperature readings are very accurate. The readings can be send to any android phone via Bluetooth. The boat itself weigh less than 2kg, hence it’s easy to bring it around.


How is it connected:

Mechanics:

The outer cover was built by laser cutting 5 mm acrylic

pieces on bond them together. As a double protection, we

silicon the glued area and apply gasket silicon at the top of

the box before putting the top cover on.

We have to 3D print the parts (supports that are pink and white in colour) to secure the pipes onto the main body. Then we use screws to connect them together. The screws that screw the box to the 3D printed parts are also covered in silicon to prevent water from seeping in. The top cover is lock on to the 4 walls by snap lock. Some of the plates are painted white as white is a reflective colour and does not absorb heat which can heat up the temperature in the box.

Our servo motor is mounted onto the side of the box by a 3D printed holder, as shown in the picture. It turns a gear that is mounted on its in-built shaft, to another gear which is directly connected to the pipe holding the motor. This allows the servo motor to turn and control the angle of the T100 motor.

The T100 had to be connected to a 3D printed model holder, due to its unique mount, as depicted as the red part. This is then connected to the pipe by bending a metal rod and locking it in place.

Parts used: 
2 PVC pipe
Styrofoam
Acrylic
Silicon
3D printing plastic

Electronics: 

The Arduino that is connected to the Xbee on the controller will send a signal out to the boat and the Xbee on the boat will send the signal to the Arduino and it will convert the signal into specific commands eg. turning the pipe, turning on/off the motor and taking temperature.

The temperature reading will be send to an android phone using our app via Bluetooth. The app has extra feature as well eg. save data, view save data.

To see our codes, click on this link

This is our full schematics:

The boat is being powered by two batteries. The 500mAh Lithium Polymer battery (small black battery) is used to power the servo motor only. Having its own battery will ensure that it has higher torque compare to it being powered by the Arduino. The 2200mAh Lithium Polymer battery (big blue battery) is used to power the rest of the electronics such as the Arduino and the T100 thruster.

Parts used:
Arduino Uno
Temperature Sensor
Two batteries (500mAh & 2200mAh lithium polymer)
Motor Shields
Servomotor
T100 thruster

How to use our product?

Firstly, the user has to plan out the temperature taking points around the lake.

Secondly, to switch on the boat, the user have to connect the two batteries manually. The small battery, for the servo motor and the bigger battery, for the electronics.

Thirdly, the user will then have to control and move the boat to their specific points using the remote control. It has 4 buttons on the right hand side of the remote control. The user does not have to move around while controlling the boat.

Lastly, to take temperature of the water, just press the temperature taking button on the remote control and the boat will get the temperature of the water. The readings will then be send to an android phone using our app. 

Designed by SP students:

With the help of our Engineering Academy lecturers, our group of 6 students managed to create the first prototype of The Floating Lab. Our group members are:

1. Jia Yi: Mechanical Designer

2. Jian Wei: Electrical Designer

3. Adnan: Mechanical Designer

4. Shannon Yap: Electrical Designer & Video Editor

5. Tresthon: Mechanical Designer

6. Zulhilmi: Writer & Video Editor (Not in the picture)

Week 13- Technical prototype review 

How our product looked like:

The electronic that we are using:

-T100 (motor)

-Stepper motor

-Temperature sensor

-GPS sensor

-Xbee

-LCD screen

-SD card reader

-controller 

The material that we are using to make the body:

-Pipe (PVC- gray color)

-Legs, gear (3D printing plastic- red color)

-Box (acrylic-green color)

Our project progress so far:

Mechanical side:

- Need to print 4 legs (Done)

- Need to laser cut and make a box (starting)

- Need to make a gear train of 2:1 (starting)

- proper sealing of the gaps (not yet)

- cutting the pipes for the floatation and for the T100 (not yet)

- a casing for the controller (starting)

Electronics side:

-Writing the coding for the stepper motor (Done)

-Writing the coding for the controller (Done)

-Writing the coding for T100 (Done)

-Writing the coding for the temperature sensor (starting)

-Writing the cording for the GPS (starting)

-Writing the cording for the LCD screen (not yet)

-Combine of all the coding together (3/6 done)

-Soldering all the electronic into one (not yet)

-Video/picture of our current working or finish parts/electronics  

http://sendvid.com/gnt12lio?secret=fefefbcf-d799-4843-8301-077996233332

-stepper motor turn clockwise anti-clockwise

http://sendvid.com/adkaobjf?secret=5a507ea8-8e09-4d0b-a8b2-51bc2eaa5f66

-3D printing the legs 

-Picture of our 4 legs

Feedback:

-The stepper can turn faster? (Changed)

-Should have started the making of the body with the box first and not the legs thus it would give us flexibility in doing the project. (lesson learned)

-the idea of taking the GPS location to draw a contour map on the computer is very hard. (changed)

-Changes to our product since the last blog post?

-Our temperature sensor can be between 1 millimeter and 20 meters below the sea surface. thus our group chooses 3cm. (source: https://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/SeaSurfaceTemperature )

-   - Instead of a contour map, we will display the location on the LCD screen on the controller instead and storage the information on an SD card.

UPDATED Detail on what our product does:

-First of all, it will move around the water.

-The user will manually set a specific timing at which area to take the temperature.

-The boat will have sent back the temperature which it has taken and the coordinates of the location.

-The computer will then take the coordinates and mark it on a map. For easier refers later on.

-The user should repeat the process for one month to get an accurate reading at the end.

-Every day the temperature recorded should be recorded on an excel. ***

UPDATED Detail on how the electrical part works together to take readings:

-The controller’s XBEE will transmit a signal to the boat’s XBEE to give it command.

- Since the controller’s XBEE is connected to the joystick module, the user will only need to use the joystick to move the boat around.

·       -The boat will then base on the user’s control move to a specific location to take the water temperature.

·       -The user will have to press a button to activate the temperature sensor to start taking a reading.

·       -The GPS will also be activated at the same time to read its location.

·        -The reading will then be display on the LCD screen for the user to see and the reading is also back up in an SD card connected to the controller.***

Week 8 Concept Report

Rationale behind our animal design

: We were inspired by frogs to create this design. It is green in colour and “shaped” like a frog thus it cannot be seen easily. This reduces the chances of people stealing our product as normally people don’t go around touching frogs as they might be poisonous. 

: We were inspired by stingrays to create this design. As normally stingray is deadly, people and animals will avoid it. This reduces the chance of it getting eaten by marine creatures and people who have bad intentions. 

: We were inspired by ducks to create this design. As we do not want to disturbed a marine life or animal that might be living in the pond or river when we are doing our research. By disguising our product as a harmless duck, other animals will not feel so threaten by it.

PUGE chart:

Function list:

3D drawings:

Electronic diagrams:

Block Diagram: 

Details on what our product does:

First of all, it will move about the water. The user will manually set a specific timing at which area to take the temperature. The boat will have send back the temperature which it has taken and the coordinates of the location to the computer. The computer will then take the coordinates and mark it on a map. For easier references later on. The user should repeat the process for one month to get an accurate reading at the end.

Details on how the electrical part work together to take readings:

The controller’s XBEE will transmit a signal to the boat’s XBEE to give it command. Since the controller’s XBEE is connected to the joystick module, the user will only need to use the joystick to move the boat around. The boat will then base on the user’s control move to a specific location to take the water temperature. The user will have to press a button to active the temperature sensor to start taking the reading. The GPS will also be activated at the same time to read its location. The readings will be sent via the boat’s XBEE to the computer’s XBEE.

Details on how the electrical part work together to move the boat around:

The motor is connected to a motor shielding + XBEE which allows the user to control the speed of the motor via the controller. The servo motor is also connected to the motor shielding + XBEE thus the user can control the moving of the servo motor. The servo motor will determine the direction of the motor. Therefore, the boat can move forward in any direction. 

Week 6

Week 6, 23/11/2016

Task: Wireless Sensor Networks

This week's activity is revolving around Wireless Sensor Networks. We were given 2 XBee unit that are meant for wireless communication. We then insert the XBee to find the PAN ID and the Serial High and Low.

END Node:
PAN ID-3332   SH-13A200  SL-40E8CFDC

PC Node:
PAN ID-3332 SH-13A200 SL-40E8CF9E

The serials are required so that another XBee unit can send information by modifying their Destination High and Low Address. Afterwards we can establish a connection from our PC node to send packets of data to the END node to activate programs inside it. In this instance, the letter a will light the LED while the letter b will turn it off. We also worked with group 5 to make a switch/buzzer circuit where we (group 8) became the buzzer circuit and coding for the buzzer while group 5 makes the switch circuit and coding for the buzzer. We were able to activate the buzzer from the switch from a distance without any wires after modifying our High and Low Destination address.

Group 5's END Node:-
PAN ID-3332     SH-13A200   SL-40D5B5F8

For the last activity, we had to make a Star Connection with Mrs Rubaina's XBee unit being the coordinator. We had quite a number of difficulties trying to resolve the coding and circuits, taking at least 6 times to redo the coding and asking around for help. At last we managed to get it working and are able to display the values we got from our sensor. We have not decided in our project whether we want to use a XBee unit as we do need to use a wireless communication system but for now as we have just gained knowledge on it we might implement it.

- Adnan

Week 5

Links to our blog post from tumblr!

http://groupate.tumblr.com/post/153415232786/on-november-9-we-were-given-a-task-to-build-a
http://groupate.tumblr.com/post/153415371271/more-pictures-of-our-progress-on-week-5-zulhilmi
http://groupate.tumblr.com/post/153415415721/our-experiment-to-test-our-boats-longitudinal
http://groupate.tumblr.com/post/153415453131/our-experiment-to-test-our-boats-thrust

Week 4 Specification Report

Links to our blog posts from tumblr!

http://groupate.tumblr.com/post/153214081146/week-4-specification-report

Week 3

Links to our blog posts from tumblr!

http://groupate.tumblr.com/post/152114865021/demo-of-dissolved-oxygen-probe-led-light-to