Adafruit gear experiences zero gravity for science experiments
Last year, engineer Christian Wenzel-Benner and researcher Dr. Michaela Dümmer from Prof. Dr. Christoph Forreiter‘s research group exploring plant behaviour in microgravity got in touch with Raspberry Pi. The team’s experiments demand a high degree of automation, actuation, and sensing, and they had found RP2040 to be a low-cost solution ideally suited to the task compared to older, bulky equipment they had inherited.
The Adafruit-based solution, front, and some of the gear it replaced, rear.
Each (Feather) RP2040 sends the data to the control laptop as well as a local SD card, this provides 2×2×2 redundancy. It worked like a charm. Every Lumibox, every MD-Device performed flawlessly over the three days. We obtained both redundant and diverse experimental data at a volume and quality that our inherited equipment would never have produced.
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