On the construction side of things, we moved from the retro circuit world to the futuristic microcontroller universe. In other words, a bunch of programming. So far, things are starting to come together. As a matter of intrigue, all our code for the balloon project is hosted here. For those of us who have never programmed a day in our lives (ie Bio and Chem majors) it felt like learning a foreign language. There are different functions that allow you to read data from an arduino pin [digitalRead(pin9)] and write it to a specific location [Serial.print()] to be stored or viewed on the computer monitor. Each of the pins on our arduinos will be reading data from the attached sensors (for humidity, oxygen, UV, etc). The communication between two Arduinos via radio will allow us to request data on the ground and have it transmitted to us.
Learning programming has been confusing at times but luckily the Arduino website has been extremely helpful.
On a completely different note, we're making frozen fish fillets (say that 3 times fast). We have chillers hooked up to our fish tanks and we are starting to cool the water. These machines pump water out of the tank, run it thorough a cooling system, and pump it back in. This allows us to set the water at various desired temperatures. The 3 tanks will be cooled down one degree per day to 65°, 50°, and 55°. Cortisol is a hormone released by fish in relation to stress. The lower the water temperature, the more stressed the fish will be. When we test cortisone levels in the water at the end, the coldest tanks should have the highest amount.
We are also collecting two other sets of biological data. We have been checking the nearby Rushford Lake, Spring Lake, and Moss Lake for ice levels. We want to see how long it takes for the ice covering the lake to be completely melted. Dr. Wolfe also has us recording the bud break of several tree species on campus. Data sets such as these are what scientists use to track the impact of climate change on the environment.
In other news, we are now famous! (so not really but we were featured in the Houghton Star, which is something... Next stop, NY times!)
--Kayla and Michael
