Week 14 - SP Engineering Show 2017

Hello everyone!

So this post will be about the SP Engineering Show 2017.

Our project, "Optimization of Mushroom Cultivation" was included in the Engineering Show.

Here is a summary of our project in a video:

Our Booth

Our booth was located inside T11C Fablab along with 3 other projects.

Here is a picture to show you how our booth looks like!

Project Testing

Mushroom

To test out our project, we bought a mushroom spawn bag from Kin Yan Agrotech.

The mushroom species we got was golden oyster mushroom.

Electrical

1) Pump

We designed a circuit which included a LED, switch and a pump.

The pump was to act like the centrifugal pump that the housewives in Indonesia use to increase the humidity in the mushroom farm. Whereby the pump had to be switched on manually via the switch.

2) Warning System

For the Engineering Show, we created a mobile app which would connect via Bluetooth to the Arduino and get the data of temperature and relative humidity.

When the parameters are not in the optimal range, a warning sign will pop up.

3) XDK

We had the XDK running along with the Arduino to see if there were any differences in the readings recorded. The relative humidity data were different while the temperature recordings were similar.

Mechanical

1) Mushroom farm house

We built a prototype mushroom farm house to store the mushroom and all the electrical components.

This is the exterior of the mushroom house. It was made to prevent as little light to enter as mushrooms grow best in dark surroundings.

This is the interior of the mushroom house.

Challenges

1) Mushroom Growth

We bought the mushroom spawn bag on 18 January, Wednesday and it was healthy and growing well.

Mushroom Condition on 18 Jan, Wed

Mushroom Condition on 19 Jan, Thursday

Compared to 18 Jan, the mushroom grew bigger and looks healthy.

Mushroom Condition on 20 Jan, Friday

However on 20 Jan, the mushroom became brown and did not look healthy.

Part of the reason was because the relative humidity was not high enough for the mushrooms. The relative humidity in the house was around 50-60% while the mushroom needed 90% and above.

The second reason was because of the exposure to light. We had a light in the mushroom house so that visitors could have a look inside the house.

Feedback from Mr Chua

After Engineering Show, Mr Chua shared with us how to grow the mushroom.

He said that the spawn bag should be wrapped with a towel which should be moist. If the mushroom fruit seemed dry, we should spray water on the towel.

However, for Engineering Show, we sprayed water on the mushroom instead. This probably caused the mushroom to die as well.

In addition, he said that a dark environment is needed as such we should reduce the exposure of light to the mushroom as much as possible.

Feedback from Visitors

1) Automate the water pump

One of the feedback was to automate the pump so that the housewives need not head down to the mushroom farm and rectify the parameters. The team is currently thinking on weather we should consider automating it.

2) LCD display

As it was difficult to look into the mushroom house, some guests said that perhaps a LCD screen could be mounted outside on the wall of the house so that the parameters could be viewed. The team is currently working on the LCD screen.