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Remote hardware development and testing in the lab
In the late summer of 2020 the university allowed us to return, in a covid-secure manner, to our lab. The plan for our sea trials was back on. Now instead of working solely from home, or being full-time in the lab, we could take a pragmatic approach to progressing the hardware and software development.
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Grow Your Own Ginger Beer Plant Recipe
I was looking how to grow my own ginger beer plant. A true Ginger Beer Plant consists of a symbiotic relationship of a particular strain of yeast and a particular bacteria. This recipe is more of a yeast starter. Although there is the possibility that over time it may develop into a Ginger Beer Plant over numerous batches.
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About A Buoy
Six months ago, on a cheerful day in August 2019, we deployed our Mobilis DB 2000 databuoy off the coast of Blyth. Named ANGY (Acoustic Network Gateway buoY) and operated remotely from SEA Lab, the buoy provides a hub for our underwater acoustic communications network with two NM3 modems suspended beneath the buoy. The addition of two hydrophones and a wifi link back to shore provides a high quality audio stream to support acoustic communications experiments in the sea, as well as recordings of local wildlife such as the visiting bottle nose dolphins.
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Building a bed
We recently updated our bed. Not that exciting in itself, but the assembly process was somewhat involved. So the information below may prove useful to others considering buying one of these beds, or who also have questions during the assembly process.
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Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ : USB Power Enable/Disable
The Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ has 4 USB ports and an ethernet port. In our application we will be using a USB sound card to sample a hydrophone. But when not in use the sound card will need powering down to save battery energy. At the moment the sound card uses around 1.4W when powered up.