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Collab Log #014: Water, Ice, and 3D printed parts: An experiment

Collab Log #014: Water, Ice, and 3D printed parts: An experiment

We’ve begun some experimenting with PLA 3D printed parts to determine how they’re affected by exposure to water and ice, and to see if we can use a coating to make them waterproof.

Erin has designed an STL of a nalgene lid, and Beck has printed it. For the first round of testing, we’ll do the following experiments:

  • Placing a part in water for a set amount of time
  • Placing a part in water, freezing it, thawing it, and repeating it.

Next we’ll try the same experiments, but we’ll treat the part with sealant first.

In this first round of testing, we used a plastic tupperware container to freeze the part.

Surprisingly, it survived fairly well, even without any surface treatment! One small crack occurred on the inside of the cap.

Frozen lid!

Small break around center piece,

Just a small break!

Field Log #002 – Polystyrene pieces everywhere

Field Log #002 – Polystyrene pieces everywhere

Observed many polystyrene pieces by the lake. Though individually they were easy to overlook at a quick glance given their small size, there were clusters that formed, even landing well above the rocks forming a water wall. Here’s some photos of the observations:

These pieces are polystyrene
Collecting in areas where there are rocks
Almost looks like snow, but it’s not…
The clusters can even be seen from further away – where it’s white
Polystyrene pieces caught amongst intertwined pieces of grass
Polystyrene pieces collecting near these rocks
Polystyrene pieces between these smaller rocks
Now the polystyrene pieces are captured between these rocks
Down these steps is where many of the polystyrene pieces are situated
Some of the polystyrene pieces land above the steps onto the grass
Close up of the polystyrene pieces which are now on land
Field Log #001 – Thaw flow

Field Log #001 – Thaw flow

Hypothesis: Watching water flow routes during the thaw could help us better plan for heavy rainfall events to avoid additional sediment and coastal erosion.

The thaw is starting here. We can observe the erosion in action. Here’s what it looks like at a beach.

Erosion path at the top of the beach

Mid way point

  • We could design better routes for the water to get to the lakeAND/ORWe could design better temporary drainage basins


This will be an interesting site to observe over the coming weeks of the thaw.


This post was written and uploaded from the field for the first time on this blog. Hope it works! ?

At the closeup view, watching the water flowing is interesting to see the different colours and small grains of sand moving
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Tech Log #037: AR draggable power-up stable

Tech Log #037: AR draggable power-up stable

The AR draggable power-up functionality has now reached a stable state that’s good enough for a version 0.1. Updates to the code made it more modular for multiple markers, for 3 element power ups, and now the power up rectangle that is placed onto the marker knows when it has done so. The power up rectangles only appear when there’s a marker in view. The next step will be to download the libraries that are used and make sure it works with the latest version of everything. After that will be making some new markers, and then merging the code with MQTT. Also, catch-up has to be done for the previous logs… oops. Well, by the time this is posted, the previous 5 are now caught up too.

Tech Log #036: AWS ec2 instance back up

Tech Log #036: AWS ec2 instance back up

Quick tech log to note that the instance is back up and running again, and the AWS credits missing was resolved! Did some high level searching on what next to tackle with that, and it will be learning more about Route 53, DNS, SSL certificate manager, and React Native. This will come a bit later though, the biggest priority at hand is to make this prototype work.

Tech Log #035: Coding v0.1 sensor node

Tech Log #035: Coding v0.1 sensor node

Basic blinking is done. It works! The analog value from the temperature sensor is received on serial monitor. Will need to remember in the future to go back and look at the actual formula used in the datasheet to go from this value to one in degrees Celsius.  Before printing the pieces, work will have to be done on the 3D printer since it is experiencing an issue at some places on the build platform. Next step is back to the software, getting the AR draggable functionality working and ready to be merged with MQTT. Summary post is up on Patreon here