UrbanAg BKK

February 18, 2015 -- Helios Labs We announced not too long ago about our plans to make a "CityFarm" in Bangkok. It was inspired by MIT's CityFarm project, but apparently the name "City Farm" is very common and already being used by a group in Bangkok.

So we're now going with "UrbanAg BKK" and we've also got some progress to report. We bought and set up a Raspberry Pi B+ (from Home of Maker, Fortune IT Mall). The same night we crashed through the process of using Twython to create automated tweets through our new @UrbanAgBKK account (using this tutorial here). You can see by looking at our timeline, the measured input it was automatically reporting (every minute) was the CPU temperature of our Raspberry Pi.

The next step will be capturing and tweeting images using a webcam. Then, once the rooftop garden is being set up, it will begin sending images specifically of that project. For people interested in following the project, it will be useful for them. But more importantly, it will be useful for us because we'll be able to monitor and literally see it no matter where we are. Eventually we plan on making it a two-way process, where it is sending us data automatically and we are able to send it input over the Internet as well.

Back to the name, UrbanAg BKK,we didn't want to limit it to just rooftops. The original aquaponics prototype we've automated is entirely indoors. The city is an intricate labyrinth of alleys, balconies, rooftops, and odd spaces of all kinds. Filling unused or underused space with agriculture is appealing for many people for so many reason. Where would you build an urban garden? 

Follow Helios Labs on Twitter @HeliosLabs or find us on Facebook here. 

Aquaponics :: Last Known Photos of Our Prototype

February 10, 2015 -- Helios Labs As we move to our new location, we realize the folly of our ways. The aquaponics prototype cannot be moved. Even if it could be brought up to the fifth floor where our new studio is, we won't go through the trouble. It has been experiencing some leaking and rust has crept through to the surface. The fish are doing well, and the plants are doing fantastic under the two 30W LED flood lights (6500K). If the water vessel is to continue its existence, it will do so as a planter on ground level as part of the new building's existing container garden.

Photos showing some of the steps involved in the prototype's development. Sitting next to it in several pictures, on its side, is a failed poured-mold design that is unusable and too heavy to move. While a failure, it taught the limits to poured-mold designs for use in aquaponics systems. The bottom right picture shows the auto-fish feeder v.2 and the latest growth of basil and chili peppers under now two 30W LED flood lights.

3D Printed Arduino Fish Feeder :: The Electronics

February 4, 2015 -- Helios Labs When last we left our 3D printed Arduino fish feeder, it was all but complete. The files were uploaded on Thingiverse and SketchUp's 3D Warehouse, but the electronics still needed to be sorted out.

Note that there are two wires leading into the negative terminal of the DC 12V 1A power source, one from Arduino's GND terminal, and the other from the servo's negative wire. The Arduino is powered by a USB power adapter while the servo is powered by a typical DC wall adapter.

Now it is complete. Here's a tip on wiring up a servo alongside an Arduino (an Uno in this case): First, make sure you are powering the servo separately. We are using a 9g micro servo so a 12V 1A power adapter should be enough. Next, make sure you attach a wire from the Arduino's ground (GND) to the ground (negative) terminal used to hook up the servo. 

Arduino 3D Printed Fish Feeder V.2

January 27, 2015 -- HeliosLabs Version 2 of our auto-fish feeder is finally printed out and the files are now available online. It isn't perfect but it will be a good starting point for others. It is designed specifically to hang from a planter over a fish tank in an aquaponics system. In the future we might design a mounting system for a regular fish tank. If you want to use this now for a fish tank, you are free to modify and repost the files. In fact, we encourage it!

V.2 two being assembled with an Arduino Uno board visible in the electronics compartment just about the servo spacer which holds the servo in place when the cover is finally closed. The "arms" are attached to the back cover using a t-slot. Because this model was printed on a MakerBot using low resolution, the arms fit in very tight and required a little careful forcing. Once in place they will stay in place.

You can find the .stl files on MakerBot's Thingiverse here. For SketchUp users (this model was made in SketchUp) you can find an exploded view here in the 3D Warehouse, and a layout version you can use to export the files to .stl for printing. 

CityFarmBKK :: Urban Agriculture

January 26, 2015 -- HeliosLabs For the last several months we've been working on our indoor aquaponics system. With no soil and no natural light, we've managed to get some pretty good results so far. We've also learned a lot about automation. We've managed to keep the water pump running (very easy), have the lights run 12 hours a day (still pretty easy) and automate the feeding of our fish a specific amount at a specific time of day (a little bit harder).

What's in Store for 2015?

It was only in October when we made our first small concrete planter.

January 3, 2015 We finished last year off very strong. Lots of projects that had been crawling along had finally been finished including our aquaponics system and our revisiting Arduino. We've also crossed 3D printing off our list of things to do and it is now on our list of things we will be continuously doing.

It was just over the past few months that several makerspaces have opened in Bangkok making all of this possible. So what will a full year of access to these spaces bring?

The Arduino-driven 3D printed fish feeder was just the first, small project of an entire concept called CityFarmBKK. We want to basically make a Farmville you can manage with minimal effort at home, and also connect with and monitor with your mobile device. Instead of sending your friends a virtual basket of vegetables or products from your virtual farm, how about sending them real gifts from a real urban farm?

We also plan on tackling biogas production, but to power homes rurally, and as part of an urban, automated bioreactor system. Our first attempt was a bit disappointing so later this month we will be taking a field trip to a village powered by biogas to see how it is really done.

We're finally 3D printing!

There is also the atmospheric water generator which produces water by condensing it out of thin air. It is basically your own personal rain cloud. The water vapor is air filtered, then filtered again through more traditional water filtration systems. These are already commercially available, but how about for farms and rooftops with ample sunlight? Can a solar powered version be made so that the more hot and humid it is, the more water you get?

Finally, just over New Year's, we've been digging in rice fields in Petchaburi province to take soil samples as part of our exploration of precision farming. For Thailand, agriculture is life, and technology is ready to help make it easier, more efficient, and more profitable than ever. A lot of this technology either already exists or is far along in development elsewhere around the world. All it needs is to be adapted to the type of agriculture practiced in Thailand. Maybe along the way we can develop something new. 

Arduino-Driven 3D Printed Fish Feeder -- Take Two

January 1, 2015 Away for New Year's while our latest 3D creation is hopefully and dutifully feeding the fish in our aquaponics system, we have been pleasantly surprised by the feedback we've gotten. 3DPrint.com even covered it and I suspect it was their article that spurred many requests for the .STL files for the feeder.

left is our original design fully printed and currently working as part of our automated aquaponics system. right is our V.2 which is visibly heavier and larger to eliminate the fragility of version 1. The auger is also radically redesigned.

However, this was the very first thing we ever printed out for an actual design project. It is also the first object we've printed out that needed to be fit together. There was so much filing, sanding, and gluing that I believe many would feel defeated after waiting for each part to be printed out only to end up with all that work still to do. Not only that, but many of the tabs and slots we designed into it were way too small and many broke off. The auger too, required much delicate carving to get it to move the fish food out without binding up and stopping the servo.

It is a cool project because within a week, despite all the extra work, it finally did actually work, but to distribute it, even for free, wouldn't be so cool. So we are working on version two (v.2). V.2 is already laid out in SketchUp and will be printed out, assembled, and tested, and if it goes smoothly we will post all the files. In addition to that, all of those who contacted us will get a set of .STL files sent to them.

Changes? 

3D Printed Auto-Fish Feeder

December 26, 2014 You have one week to find a way to feed your fish before you leave for a few days starting on New Year's. What do you do? 

(A) Find someone to come into your house and do it for you each day while you are gone;
(B) Buy an expensive automatic fish feeder that may or may not meet your needs and may or may not be shipped to you in time. Or;
(C) Make your own.

The entire concept of our aquaponics system is automation so automatically feeding the fish was always part of the overall project. Time, however, required it to be implemented much faster, in fact, within a single week.

There are a variety of ways to automatically feed your fish. We decided to use an auger driven by a servo, set at timed intervals during the day and set to spin for a variable amount of time (which controls the amount of food released).

It is small, at about 140mm tall, but could hold enough food if full to feed the aquaponics system for a month or more. 

It was designed in SketchUp 8, exported to a MakerBot Replicator 2 using an .stl exporter.importer plug-in, then printed out at Bangkok's Fortune IT Mall makerspace, Gravitech's Home of Maker. This is the first non-novelty item we've tried to design and print out in 3D. The electronics consist of an Arduino Uno hooked up to a 9g micro servo modified following the instructions here.


Servos generally only rotate 180 degrees. You must find the tab(s) inside your servo that limit its range of motion and cut them off as well as immobilize the potentiometer at 90 degrees that would generally tell the servo what position it is at. Superglued at 90 and using Arduino code for continuous rotation servos (which are very hard, but not impossible to find) a position of "0" moves the servo counter-clockwise while a position of "180" moves it clock-wise.



The code for the Arduino is as follows:

Lessons Learned After 1 Week of 3D Printing

December 24, 2014 With a new makerspace opened up right down the road and a very cheap 3D printing service available, we've been putting it to use for a series of test prints including a stamp and some keychains.

In addition to being fun and even useful, the projects also served the purpose of learning what can and cannot be done with 3D printing. The lessons learned will be applied to future projects. What were some of these things learned?

Aquaponics Update -- LED Lights + Timer

December 2, 2014 The entire aquaponics system is more or less complete. There is a light stand made of PVC pipes, a 30 watt LED flood light shining at 6500 kelvins (K) and a timer set for 12 hours on, 12 hours off. The fish tank has fully cycled and the fish are looking healthy.

All that's left now is to wait and see what happens with the plants in the grow bed. The LED light is good for about half of the grow area. If results are positive for this light, a second will be placed next to it.

Basil sprouts are under the light and maybe some others will be added later. Until then, some research is going into how exactly to use soil with aquaponics. If there is a way to wick the water up to a layer of soil isolated from the system, and allow the roots to enter the pumice stone bed, this might give the best of both worlds in terms of indoor aquaponics and organic gardening.

Follow Helios Labs on Twitter @HeliosLabs or find us on Facebook here. 

More Aquaponics -- New Tank Syndrome + Plants + Lights

November 27, 2014 Here is the latest update on a ferrocement, indoor aquaponic system. After curing the cement for well over a month with water sitting in it and changing it out every week, fish have been added, 5 swordtails and 10 zebra danios. That is way too many to put in at first and clearly a mistake. Why?

New tank syndrome, that's why. It is an easy mistake that confounds and frustrates many. No one likes setting up a tank and having all their fish die one by one in the first few days.

When you set up a new artificial environment for your fish they will begin releasing waste as all living creatures are bound to do. This waste, particularly ammonia, builds up quickly and becomes toxic for your fish. The more fish you have, the quicker it builds up and begins killing off your fish (3 is the tally so far). As this goes on, colonies of bacteria begin establishing themselves. Once they reach critical mass, the ammonia levels quickly drop as the bacteria consumes them and turns them to nitrites. Another colony of bacteria begins converting nitrites into nitrates which plants can consume.

Aquaponics Update -- November 14, 2014

November 14, 2014 This system is almost ready to go. It has a working water pump now, and the electrical line management is looking good. A 3-plug extension cord has been routed toward the system using adhesive-backed electrical conduit ending in a plastic box. The extension cord has 3 plugs that will allow for the LED grow lights to be plugged in and maybe an additional system.

What's left? Fish, plants, and an LED grow light fixture, the latter of which may be the most difficult part to source with the rest already more or less located and just waiting to be purchased. Looking at MIT's City Farm I've been able to figure out the LED lights being used. It appears to be Philips GreenPower LEDs (PDF warning) and Heliospectra fixtures. Can these or their equivalent be found in Thailand? We'll know soon enough.

Biogas -- Your Own Pet Bioreactor

November 9, 2014 Bioreactors are defined as "any manufactured or engineered device or system that supports a biologically active environment." That includes a biogas digestor in which bacteria in the absence of oxygen break down organic material and produce methane gas. 

You basically "feed" a manufactured stomach full of bacteria organic material you can find such as fruit and vegetable cuttings from preparing a meal. The bacteria break it down into organic fertilizer you can use for agricultural purposes, as well as methane gas which can be used as a cooking gas, or as a fuel for driving a generator or vehicle engine.

Biogas is already an established alternative energy. In the UK, a supermarket chain built its own biogas power plant it feeds expired food products to in order to produce enough electricity to power its own stores. In other countries such as Sweden, buses and trains have been run on biogas. In Germany, they have created highly engineered, sophisticated biogas power plants capable of producing electricity to supply entire towns.

Aquaponics Update -- October 21, 2014

October 21, 2014 While considering alternatives to the extremely heavy and impractical poured concrete system featured in the last update (pictured left in the image below), several options presented themselves. The first was fiberglass, and these can be found at Bangkok's local JJ Market for 800 Baht (about 25 US Dollars) but would still require fittings, cladding, and of course a planter to complete the system.




The second option was ferrocement. This is a 2.5:1 sand/cement mix applied thinly to a wire mesh frame. This turned out to be easy and cheap to do and the outcome was impressive. One could imagine much larger outdoor projects and it should be noted that entire homes have built using ferrocement, as well as immense water tanks that last virtually forever. All of the concrete and sand used probably didn't cost even 300 Baht (10 US Dollars) and there is still some left over.

Aquaponics Update -- October 5, 2014

October 5, 2014 Here is the final prototype and probably the final concrete system I will be making. As suspected, the limits of "cardboard-concrete technology" were pushed to their breaking point. The water reservoir was supposed to be twice as high, but instead the walls ended up twice as thick. The cardboard simply couldn't maintain its dimensions and the concrete expanded horizontally instead of filling in the form vertically. The inner reservoir is scarcely 200mm deep.



It also is prohibitively heavy. It can be picked up, but it must weight at least 70 kg (150+ pounds) or more which is ridiculous and very impractical for urban agricultural applications which need modular, flexible systems that can be easily moved not only horizontally, but vertically up and down stairs as well.

Still, I have both the reservoir and the overhead planter complete. With everything I learned doing the test article and the lower reservoir, I would say the planter came out nearly perfect. It even included a hole in the bottom for drainage (not visible in the picture) that came out perfectly. In fact, it came out so perfect it makes me wonder what smaller projects or systems I can do with concrete without overreaching in size and material limitations.

Aquaponics Update -- October 2, 2014

October 2, 2014 Here is the first test article using concrete and cardboard forms. This planter is small, using about 6 liters of concrete mix with final dimensions of about 200 x 200 x 270 mm (8 x 8 x 10.5 inches).

What's This Have to Do With Making and Biology?

This planter is a test article for a much larger aquaponics system. Besides allowing users to grow their own plants and fish, and other aquatic organisms in a finely tuned environment, it also provides organic food, potential input materials for projects, and a biological microcosm for observation and experimentation -- all of this on either your balcony, near a window, or on your rooftop.

It can also serve as a test bed for various forms of automation. Although this test article may be destined to hold a single plant, what is learned from making this minute planter will be used in constructing the full sized prototype. To see projected progression of the project, please see our earlier post here. This is the "concrete planters" stage.

What Was Learned?

Starting small is a good idea because you are likely to make a lot of mistakes. For one, I didn't mix enough concrete so it came up short as you can see -- it didn't even cover all my letters for "HELIOS" with most of the S missing.

Two, at the last minute I realized I had no provisions of putting the concrete into the form from my large ungainly bucket -- so I took out the inner form and poured all the concrete in thinking I could push the inner form back in. That didn't really work either and luckily my form was strong enough with plenty of tape to handle the moving around.

Finally, and they warn you about this but it is still a very easy mistake to make, I accidentally put in too much water while mixing the concrete, meaning I had to add in more cement until it became the right consistency. ALWAYS start with just a little water, mix it in completely before adding more.

Aquaponics Update -- September 26, 2014

September 26, 2014 On hand now: concrete (still need sand and some fine gravel), cardboard boxes for the first form (400x400x500mm), packing tape to cover the cardboard, and so almost ready to attempt the first version. There's even several 3D renders showing how they should come out looking like (approximately). 

The walls are a bit too thick in these renderings, and the dimensions are not correct according to the first version finally decided upon -- but if I had to pick one that would look most like the box being attempted, it would be the more cube-like version.

After the box is formed, it will be tested for holding water, let to sit for approximately one month before introducing biology (fish, plants), and only after a pH test.

Follow Helios Labs on Twitter @HeliosLabs or find us on Facebook here.   

Aquaponics Update -- September 25, 2014

September 25, 2014 After much research it appears that concrete in general can be safe for fish and plants, provided the system sits with water in it, changed periodically, for up to a month or so. Concrete can be seen hosting fish and plants all around Thailand, including here in Bangkok, so it was always known that it was possible.

The next step is designing the actual dimensions of the setup and crafting the forms for the concrete. Instructable tutorials suggest cardboard with duct tape between it and the concrete.

The design will probably look like something pictured to the left but a bit smaller, however the final, exact design will be determined by the cardboard I can find. The post office here most likely has a variety of boxes that can serve this purpose. Remember, the first box holds the concrete in, the second box holds the void within the finished shape.

Potential Fish and Plants

Snakeskin gourami fish turn out to be a very popular and easy fish to take care of in both terms of hobby fish keeping and aquaculture. Because of their docile nature, they make good additions to community tanks which means other fish can be included in the aquaponics setup. Zebra fish are a possibility, so are freshwater shrimp, and some perpetually breeding varieties like guppies and swordtails.

It may be nice to use fish that are all indigenous to Thailand (where Helios Labs is located) so that the set up can double as a research microcosm as well as an experimental food source.

For plants, ultimately the goal is to grow enough for tomato sauce, herbs, and a salad. Even before the aquaponics system is set up, I've already investigated an indoor system to run in parallel ... indoor, perhaps hydroponic mushrooms. Hay mushrooms found here in Thailand, and Italian-style portobellos (agaricus bisporus) are possible varieties that can be grown.

Follow Helios Labs on Twitter @HeliosLabs or find us on Facebook here.  

EEEPC Learns New Trick :: PirateBox

HACKS :: Not too long ago I managed to get my EEEPC to run the Arduino IDE by installing Ubuntu Netbook 10.10. I'm always on the lookout for added functionality for my old netbook. With its cramped keyboard and sluggish response time (compared to my other computers) it would be ideal to give it a job it can quietly do on its own in the corner somewhere. That's just what the PirateBox lets it do.

An old EEEPC learns a new trick :: now serving files wirelessly.

What is a PiarateBox? A file sharing and chatting device that uses WiFi to connect any users in range. While the term "PirateBox" makes it sound illicit, I assure you it has found a most "legit" use here at Helios Labs. We teach students a wide variety of subjects and occasionally this involves computers. Especially with younger students, allowing them to connect to the Internet during lessons can become a distraction. When students need files, they can access them instead, wirelessly, via the PirateBox.

A student's Android tablet connected to the PirateBox.

It looks like the project has a lot of momentum and buzz around it, so hopefully it will gain new features, and new potential in the near future.

You can see the installation process here on the PirateBox forum.

I used my Windows laptop to download UnetBootin and the PirateBox .ISO. I wrote the disk image onto an old USB thumb drive, and tested it first on my laptop, then on my EEEPC.

For the EEEPC, I didn't have to do anything at all to it except hit F2 during start up, go to Hard Disk Drives and make sure my USB device was selected, then make sure it was set as the first option under Boot Device Priority. After that, it worked perfectly and on the very first try. Very rarely does any project like this go so smoothly -- it is a true testament to the skill and thought put into it by the developers of this project.

ARDUINO PROTYPING :: PART 1

ARduino :: The Arduino microcontroller is known for simplifying the prototyping process for electronic projects. I've always loved electronics but it could be a frustrating hobby to say the least - Arduino has changed that. I had an idea for a USB coconut lantern that developed out of one of the example circuits that came with the SparkFun Arduino Inventor's Kit. Combining Circ-02 (seen below)* from the booklet with this Instructable from user Earthshine, led me on my way.