Entry 7: Meeting with Mentor (4)

26 April 2012

Today, we had a project meeting with our mentor, where we sat down and discussed about the first prototype design that we had.

We discussed about how the stand was to be made as the remaining components for that prototype could be bought and installed easily. However, in the end we scrapped this idea as well.

This is because of the fact that the stand that was to be created would not be strong enough to support the tray of leca. Furthermore, it is extremely costly to custom make the stands such that it is thin enough to clasp onto the fish tank and strong enough to hold on to the leca tray at the same time. Next, it only allows for minimal customisation, whereby we can only change the colour of the tray, and stand. We are unable to customise the size of the prototype where the size is fixed to that of the fish tank.

Since we have decided to scrap the above ideas, we then have to come up with new ideas that would work since we already have had experience with the previous prototypes. Through this session, we brainstormed on a few ideas, but ultimately, we decided on one idea that seemed feasible and practical. It was the idea of a table aquaponics set up. It was basically an idea of installing the aquaponics system onto a table where the fish tank would be underneath the table and the leca tray above the table.

This solves the problem of support for the leca tray, reduces storage space required for the aquaponics set up, as well as allows for a lot of customisation for the table, tray and even the fish tank. This allows our aquaponics prototype to integrate into households easily.

After the meeting today, we will be having another project group meeting among the group members to discuss further on the potential of this design.

Entry 6: Meeting with Mentor (3)

4 April 2012

Today, we had another meeting with our mentor after we passed the preliminary round of the Projects Competition.

In this meeting, we discussed about how our project will progress thereafter and also the feasibility in building of the prototypes that we have designed previously. Regarding the direction of our project, we basically set a timeline up for ourselves as to when each stage of our project must be completed by.

Here is our timeline:

April (Finalising of prototype design, materials that are to be used)

May (Contacting of external help, preparation of materials) 

June (Building of prototype)

July (Semi-Finals)

Regarding the building of the prototypes that we have designed previously, our group has decided to scrap the prototype design with the "terraces" formation. Here's a picture of that design:

The reason why we chose to scrap this design was due to a few reasons. Firstly, the design was not feasible. Besides just the lica sliding along, the hook might not be able to support the weight of the lica at all resulting in the entire prototype to fail. Secondly, the time taken for the water to travel one cycle around the various terraces would take too long and also there is a chance that water will remain stagnant because water will only travel when the first terrace is full. This will also result in the lack of nutrients by the fish waste for subsequent terraces as they might already be used up by the plants in the first terrace. Furthermore, our project emphasises a lot on simplicity on the process of the creation of the prototype and this design is quite complicated. Last but not least, plastic is used for the creation of the terraces and it is hard to find the suitable type of plastic for the terraces.

After this meeting, project members have gone back home to check out the feasibility and practicality of the other prototype design.