An Introduction to Soil Types with Mr. Wakeman

Today, Richard Wakeman, Vice President at C.T. Male Associates, P.C. and most important of all Juliana's Dad, visited our class after school to explain to us how soil type may effect our project as well as provide resources to us to help measure soil type.

One of the coolest things he showed us was a Soil Survey. Every county across the U.S. is required to have a soil survey done. This survey provides information on the soil type, growing conditions, moisture, pH, and various other elements pertaining to soil conditions.

I agree with Mr. Wakeman that starting off geographically would be the best way to start. The group of team members at this meeting also concluded that using a dichotomous key to have the consumer easily identify their soil type may be our best option for tackling this important variable.

Mr. Wakeman also offered us the contact information of a representative from the local organization that conducts the county's Soil Survey as well as another expert in this field. Mr. Wakeman was a huge help and we look forward to seeing him soon and thank him for his time.

- Tim V.

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Bruce Hodge Lends Helping Hand

The InvenTeams Computer Integration Group recently met with local inventor, Bruce Hodge. Mr. Hodge is the founder of local company Tech Valley Technologies which produces targeting systems for use by the U.S. Military and in Police Officer Training.

He discussed with us past projects he has done using LabView as well as using DAQs to acquire data. Bruce offered guidance to us by letting us bounce ideas off of him and him offering us multiple solutions to our problems and explaining to us the pros and cons of each. Mr. Hodge also introduced us to the Descision Making MAtrix of DMM which we plan to use heavily in deciding which DAQ as well as which sensors to purchase.

Mr. Hodge was a huge help and we had a great time visiting with him and look forward to seeing him again soon.

- Steve

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The InvenTeam Mega Blog

For those of you that are unaware, there is a Lemelson-MIT InvenTeam Class of 2008 Mega Blog where different representatives of the Lemelson Foundation, MIT, and past and present InvenTeam Members can post about the grant program and their teams accomplishments.

I have just posted the first post for the SSHS InvenTeam on the blog. Check it out at the InvenTeams Blog Site to see what we have written as well as read about what other teams are up to around the Nation.

- Elliott

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Got Sensors? We do!

One of the many resources available to us as a Lemelson-MIT InvenTeam is the support of various corporations in fields related to what we are doing.

Vernier Software & Technology is one of those companies generous enough to not only talk to us personally about what we are doing but also donate a few sensors to us. After talking personally to the president of the company, David Vernier himself, he offered to send us a few sensors to use as well as gave us a little guidance as to how to go about identifying future sensors to purchase. Since we are going to be taking measurements direct from the soil and not from an aqueous solution the number of sensors available to us is limited and Mr. Vernier pointed us in the right direction.

Mr. Vernier, if you are reading this, thank you so much for your help.

- Elliott

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Happy Birthday AutoCAD!

On Thursday November, 15 AutoCAD celebrated its 25th anniversary. The Saratoga InvenTeam utilizes Autodesk Inventor(a similar product) to generate designs and prototypes for the PAFSI product. Such incredible technology has allowed for beautiful and complex 3D designs to be generated quickly and effectively. The result is increased individual productivity and possiblity for near unilimted achievements.

"What AutoCAD did, if you look at a snapshot of the past 25 years, was really to democratize computer-aided drafting,"-Mark Fritts senior manager Autodesk

Before AutoCAD's debut in 1982, computer aided drafting programs were confined to very large corporations and large universities while the smaller companies and individuals relied on the tried and true method of lead pencils and drafting boards, a long and labor intentsive process. Interestingly, the software's main selling point today is the same today as it was the year of its birth: productivity. Whether used to design the tooling and instrumentation on Boeing airplanes or the aquatic O stage for Cirque du Soleil, AutoCAD continues to help designers and engineers complete complicated projects faster and with far fewer people.

"It puts all this power into your hands. One designer can do what it took two or three to do before." - Andy Logan, a principal designer at Frog Design

-Peter Snyder

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An Interesting Side Note

In researching various sensors and power sources for our PAFSI device, we ran across in article about a associate professor of agriculture who has been able to optimize sensors and power sources for use in a plant environment.  Lei Tian was featured in the June 2007 issue of Growing magazine for his beta version of a fully autonomous weed removal robot.  The weed-seeking robot according to Tian's website, "explores the theory, implementation, and real-time application of a machine vision system used as a sensor for an outdoor field robot."  The robot is just one example of how automation can be used in a planting environment by collecting data from sensors and connecting with a database to determine plant type. 

- For more information about Lei Tian's invention visit his website  or check out Gardening Magazine

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