Arduino Robot Platform

May 16, 2015 -- Helios Labs We've been working on an open source Arduino-driven robot. The chassis, wheels, and anything else we can think of is 3D printed. We started with a tracked version but it was too complicated. We moved on to a round configuration which worked well but had some flaws so now we are developing an improved version.

The new version has rails on the top so you can swamp in and out different projects.

Raspberry Pi Urban Agriculture TweetBot Monitoring System

We're using an Anitech IR 160 USB webcam. 

March 5, 2015 -- Helios Labs We're building an automated urban agricultural project, with at least one garden on the rooftop, and an indoor LED-lit project similar to our already successful indoor aquaponics system (recently just moved).

The project will include a means to monitor and even control it online using Twitter among other applications. It will include the following features:

1. TweetBot to automatically tweet pictures of the garden several times a day.
2. TweetBot to automatically tweet water level and soil moisture data at least once a day.
3. The ability to water plants and feed fish remotely.
4. The ability to take pictures on command remotely.

For now, we have the TweetBot automatically uploading pictures of the system several times a day. Here's how we did it. If you make it through this tutorial, you'll be able to add on other features. To make this TweetBot, we've used a Raspberry Pi B+ (RPi).

Making a TweetBot tweet pictures of the garden several times a day.

1. Setting up Raspberry Pi: We downloaded the Rasbian .zip file found on Raspberry Pi's official website, unzipped it, and used Win32 Disk Imager to put it on our mini SD card. We placed the SD card into our Raspberry Pi B+ and followed the instructions in setting up the desktop. Raspberry Pi's official website has a help section full of links showing you the absolute basics, in case you get stuck.

Follow this guide to help you download an OS and put it on your SD card for installing on your RPi.

We also did some practice using the terminal and even setting up a way to wirelessly control it using a laptop within the same network (same room using the same WiFi connection). A good tutorial showing these steps can be found 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.

Synthetic Biology :: NPK Biosensor?

February 9, 2015 -- Helios Labs After our visit with Dr. Asawin Meechai at KMUTT to discuss synthetic biology and DIYbio and the prospect of possibly doing a project in the near future, we've been thinking of some ideas of what we could do that would not only be fun and informative, but practical and perhaps even applicable for Thailand's immense agricultural industry.

We've discussed the problem of fertilizer use in Thailand before. Not knowing the nutrient content of the soil you are farming generally leads to over-fertilizing your fields, wasting money and having a negative impact on the health of your plants. It also cultivates an unhealthy over-dependency on large chemical fertilizer companies. To fix this, networks have begun offering "soil clinics" to help test soil for nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium content (NPK) and offering recommendations on how much and what type of fertilizer to use.

The kits used to test the soil cost 5,000 Thai Baht and are good for only 60 tests. The test requires multiple steps, involves many chemicals and is a bit cumbersome. Well trained staff are able to process hundreds of soil samples using multiple test kits in a single day, but could there be an easier way? Would it be possible to develop a handheld biosensor to measure NPK? Could a sensor post even give real-time NPK readings? And could all of this be done with the aid of synthetic biology?

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).

Open Source Solar Charge Controller

January 21, 2015 One thing that struck us when visiting the solar power grid being built by volunteers in the remote hills of Pa Deng, Phetchaburi, was the fact that all of the hardware being used was proprietary, off-the-shelf equipment. While it is being effectively used, since the project has limited resources (including a very limited budget), could part of their model include the development of homegrown open source hardware that can do more for cheaper, and do exactly what is needed for the varieties of alternative power grids used in Thailand?

Here is an Instructable by a maker in India who has developed an Arduino-based solar charge controller. The parts are themselves open source, and interestingly the Arduino flavor used is the Nano, sold by Gravitech right here in Thailand. And since the author of this Instructable was kind enough to share his knowledge on Instructables.com, his project is also very open. Known there as user Deba168, he has his own website too; Open Green Energy, providing a lot more information on his projects including the Arduino charge controller.  

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 -- 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.

Replacing Fluorescent tubes with LEDs

October 2, 2014 Did you know you can replace ordinary fluorescent tubes with LED tubes without changing the light fixture? All that's needed is to remove the starter since LED bulbs don't need them (and won't work properly unless you remove it).

Your new LED tube will turn on the instant your flip the switch -- no more flickering or wait, and supposedly LED's use less energy and last longer.

Below are installation instructions in both Thai and English.

In Bangkok, you can find them at an increasingly large number of stores, from HomePro to Home Works, Boontavorn, and even in Tesco and Big C nowadays.

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.  

Rooftop + Interior Aquaponics

September 2, 2014 We're working on aquapoinics, the combination of aquaculture and hydroponics. Where a nutrient solution is used to grow plants without soil in a hydroponics system, in a aquaponics system, waste water from the fish serves as nutrients for the plants. In addition to growing healthy, organic food and materials, an aquaponics system provides a living biological environment with highly controllable variables that can be used for a wide range of DIYbio research. 


Taking homemade concrete planter designs from Instructables, basic fish keeping and hydroponic gardening techniques, and putting it all together adds up to a highly adaptable aquaponic system you can use indoors with the use of LED grow lights, on your balcony, or on your rooftop. The use of concrete if done correctly, will prevent leeching of harmful substances you might get with the many plastics found in aquaponic setups.  

Also, using concrete allows you to create forms that will fit any space.

 

The future of Open Source Synthetic Biology

September 2, 2014 (H+ Magazine) If the controversy over genetically modified organisms (GMOs) tells us something indisputable, it is this: GMO food products from corporations like Monsanto are suspected to endanger health. On the other hand, an individual’s right to genetically modify and even synthesize entire organisms as part of his dietary or medical regimen could someday be a human right.

The suspicion that agri-giant companies do harm by designing crops is legitimate, even if evidence of harmful GMOs is scant to absent. Based on their own priorities and actions, we should have no doubt that self-interested corporations disregard the rights and wellbeing of local producers and consumers. This makes agri-giants producing GMOs harmful and untrustworthy, regardless of whether individual GMO products are actually harmful.

Corporate interference in government of the sort opposed by the Occupy Movement is also connected with the GMO controversy, as the US government is accused of going to great lengths to protect “stakeholders” like Monsanto via the law. This makes the GMO controversy more of a business and political issue rather than a scientific one, as I argued in an essay published at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET). Attacks on science and scientists themselves over the GMO controversy are not justified, as the problem lies solely with a tiny handful of businessmen and corrupt politicians.

Open Source Lab Bot

BIOlogy :: There are many challenges facing the DIY biologist. Among them is a shortage of helping hands, time, and a clean area to work in. There are a lot of innovative solutions being used to circumvent these obstacles. Automation short circuits a lack of hands and time, while homemade HEPA filters, plastic, and duct tape can produce a relatively clean work area.

Automation is difficult though, and most DIYbio automation is done within the context of start-up businesses. If you are lucky and have a strong DIYbio community gathering regularly at a community lab, implementing more elaborate environmental controls and automation can be doable.

In the future, though, there might be another option -- the 3D printer of the DIYbio movement -- the lab bot.

Modular Science on its website here, claims: "We are building hardware and software for lab automation. We focus on modular, hackable, well-documented systems so that you modify the hardware and software for your own experiments."