Skys Not The Limit For Arduinos In Space

Arduinos In Space could be the tagline for the two microcontroller (MCU) products that are the topic of tonights post -- Ardulab and ArduSat.

Ardulab has been completely open-sourced (from ArduLab)

First off, Ardulab. Although some may find it a skoosh misleading, SpaceRefs July 25 article about an Arduino in space is titled, "Infinity Aerospaces Ardulab Makes Building & Launching Space-Certifiable Hardware As Easy As Baking Cookies." I baked cookies tonight. Oatmeal-raisin cookies. They tasted good. Baking them was more difficult than walking across the street and buying cookies from the North Coast Co-op. But it was much less challenging than building and launching space-certified hardware. On the other hand, baking cookies was also definitely much less rewarding and interesting than launching space hardware.

Ardulab projects are intended to democratize the hardware needed to perform experiments on the International Space Station. According to the SpaceRef article,

"Today Infinity Aerospace announced the complete open-sourcing of Ardulab, the Arduino powered platform for building and launching simple experiments to the International Space Station. Previously costing space researchers, students, and experimenters between $2,000 - $3,500 per kit, anyone can now build and launch an off-the-shelf space-certifiable experiment, with the only costs being building their equipment and launching it. When it was originally conceived back in 2012, the fundamental idea behind Ardulab was to give as many people as possible the tools and information they need to be successful in space. Making Ardulab a completely open-source platform allows for all of the intellectual property to be used to its full extent. The Ardulab is a plug-n-play electronics platform with all of the necessary features and interfaces for use on the International Space Station."

Moon redwoods behind CCAT on HSU campus

It seems like Humboldt creative minds could come up with a few unique and worthwhile space station experiments. Maybe something involving redwoods in space. After all, there are already redwoods growing on the Humboldt State University (HSU) campus grown from seeds that orbited the moon in 1971. Using the Ardulab platform, the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group could help build the hardware for the experiments that get accepted by NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration). Or the MCU group could help organize a design competition for an Ardulab project. That might be a fun and effective way to get Humboldt students interested in learning how to design and build Arduino-powered projects and might also get them interested in space. It would just be a extra bonus if one of the Humboldt Ardulab competition projects was accepted by NASA to be sent up to the space station. Maybe the end result would be that wed have another batch of aerospace redwoods growing on the HSU campus.

The second MCU in space item for tonights post is the ArduSat. The backstory for ArduSat, designed and built by the space startup NanoSatisfi, is an intriguing one if youre interested in how a microcontroller project went from a concept to company that just received $25 million in funding. The backstory can be told as a couple guys that designing a cool, innovative and useful piece of technology in a California garage -- the Singularity Hub article "Space Exploration On The Cheap: Kickstarter Sensation NanoSatisfi Launches in 2013" says:

"NanoSatisfi is based out of a collective workspace provided by tech incubator, Lemnos Labs, and situated near the ballpark in downtown San Francisco. Upon arrival, one is greeted by a nondescript front door sporting a few haphazardly labeled buzzers...NanoSatisfi doesn’t have a buzzer—Lemnos Labs is in the garage."

ArduSat in space (from Singularity Hub)

Or the backstory can be looked at from a different perspective that seems a bit less grassroots bootstrapping, with the same Singularity Hub article explaining that:

"Singularity Hub asked Peter Platzer, co-founder of NanoSatisfi, to elaborate...Platzer began his career as a high-energy physicist at CERN [Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire; same place the Internet was invented]...After CERN, Platzer went to Harvard to get his MBA and wound up running a $500 million quant fund on Wall Street."

The Wikipedia entry for ArduSat has a timeline for the project, but the big picture is that NanoSatisfi ran a Kickstarter campaign for the ArduSat and got over $100,000, about three times what their original funding goal was. They followed that up by raising over a million dollars more. Apparently that wasnt enough money to successfully launch that ArduSat, because they just announced today, July 29, that they have raised $25 million and changed their name from NanoSatisfi to Spire, Inc.

The Wikipedia entry described ArduSat this way:

"ArduSat is an open source, Arduino based Nanosatellite, based on the CubeSat standard. It contains a set of Arduino boards and sensors. The general public will be allowed to use these Arduinos and sensors for their own creative purposes while they are in space...ArduSat is the first open source satellite which will provide such open access to the general public to space."

If there are a few civilian space enthusiasts in Humboldt, we could pull together a complex, interesting, challenging and fun project or competition involving both Ardulab and ArduSat, two MCU-controlled projects that Humboldt people could work on. Thats one project that would truly be out of this world!

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LED Lettuce The HydroTower And LED Humboldt Hydroponics

Tonights blog post has two tales of LED grow lights and the planting of a seed for a future collaborative project in the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group.

LED lettuce (from Wired.com)

On July 11, Wired had an article titled, "LED-lit indoor farm produces 10,000 lettuces a day." Because several members of the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group have expressed an interest in using microcontrollers (MCUs) for automated or indoor plant growing, the LED lettuce article caught my interest. The Wired article presents some pretty impressive statistics.

"A newly opened indoor farm in Japan has been built with LEDs that emit light at wavelengths optimal for plant growth...Its 2,300 square metres, making it the worlds largest LED-illuminated indoor farm, and is already producing 10,000 heads of lettuce per day. The LED lamps allow Shimamura to adjust the day-night cycle for the plants, allowing them to photosynthesise during the day and respire at night. Discarded produce is cut from 50 percent of the harvest on a conventional farm to ten percent, and the lettuces grow two and a half time faster...stringent climate control means that water usage is just one percent of the amount needed by outdoor fields."

I can understand that the indoor growing and carefully controlled ambient conditions would reduce the amount of water to grow plants compared to outdoors. But it seems a real stretch to believe that the LED lettuce farm only uses 1% of what would be used for an outdoor lettuce farm!

Calvin students HydroTower workshop area

The second LED grow light project took place in my hometown -- Grand Rapids, Michigan. That project was the HydroTower, the senior design project for a group of Calvin College students. The HydroTower was a fully automated hydroponic garden for home use, using an MCU for control and LED lights to enable photosynthesis and plant growth. This MCU / LED grow project popped up in a Google search after I read the LED lettuce article. Since the HydroTower happened in Grand Rapids, it seemed appropriate to find out a little more. The Calvin College alumni magazine Spark says this about the HydroTower:

"In October, the team researched hydroponics, learning about the floating, misting, and flood-and-drain (ebb-and-flow) methods of growing...their HydroTower would be constructed of a 20-by-32-by-32 inch base unit, to house the electronics and plumbing, and two open growing levels, each measuring 24 by 32 by 32 inches. The unit would operate on an ebb-and-flow system, and it would irrigate the plants and dispense nutrients automatically...In November, Team HydroTower broke the project into components, and each student engineer took one. DeKock would construct the

HydroTower is finished

tower. Kirkman would engineer the water and piping. Vonk would create the LED system, using only red and blue lights because those are the only colors of the spectrum that plants absorb. Meyer would program the microcontroller that controls the LED lighting, the pump and valves, and the touch-screen user interface. And Eelkema would create the pH and electroconductivity sensors that handle nutrient control—a system, the team emphasized, that sets HydroTower apart from other hydroponic farms. “The sensors would input into a microcontroller, which would then use algorithms to decide which nutrients need to be replenished,” Eelkema explained. “The only problem with that is the biology and chemistry research is far more advanced than we have time to cover. Right now I am shooting for a best guess that I know won’t kill the plants."

The Calvin College students project website gives this final update on the project:

"All through April and the first week of May Team HydroTower worked...to finish the prototype. The month of April saw the addition of our second growing level and some new plants. Other major accomplishments made before Design Night were completion of the pH and EC sensors, a working User Interface on the touchscreen...On May 7th the Engineering department held their annual Senior Design Open House where the team answered questions and took comments about the HydroTower. Later that evening the team gave a presentation detailing some of the work and challenges they faced during the past year...HydroTower is a finalist in the IEEE Presidents Change the World Competition. The project has been selected as one of 15 finalist entries and the top three winners will be announced at the end of May."

Humboldt Laser Harp v.1.0 nearly finished

It seems like the first collaborative project from the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group, the Humboldt Laser Harp v.1.0 (HLH), is well under way. Ed Smith said today that the HLH was being played by his kids in his kitchen. We will no doubt be working on improvements to HLH v.1.0, and at some point will start planning for v.2.0.

But this seems like a good time to plant a seed for another MCU group project. And a project involving some type of hydroponics and LEDs seems like a good target. Ill be reaching out to a few people to see if they want to work on that kind of a project. If youre interested in being involved with an MCU / LED garden project, contact me at arcatabob (at) gmail {dott} com.

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