Meeting with Jimmy Oct 1 2010--
Students: For June-Aug 2011, Cindy has one returning REU student (Ben Zinninger) and will interview another in January. Tom Lucas (At U of L between undergrad and grad programs) is designing sensor boards for those REUs to assemble. Jimmy has Robert Stewart and Bill Ford working in his lab, and will select 2 more REU students for the upcoming summer.

Students do another round of sediment sensor testing next summer with different types of sediment in Jimmy's lab. 
Beer-Lambert Law -- Attenuation is product of concentration, depth, and absorption coefficient for a particular type of sediment. So we definitely need to test on a range of sediments.

Add a light source at night --trip a switch when the Io sensor does not pick up a very high voltage. 

Robert's thesis in May 2011 will concern the sediment sensor and he will propose modifications in it for next summer.

Sediment light absorbance is looking like the next journal paper from the low-cost sensor team. 


Low-cost pressure sensor-mostly done, just need board revision. Test and order through BatchPCB. 0-3psi is ideal for small streams. 0-8 psi is good for larger streams. Every foot adds 0.445 psi. Having at least one pressure sensor is important for interpreting and visualizing field results, because it sets the depth for all sensors. 

Low-cost conductivity sensor= yes or no water, mostly done already by Tom Lucas. Jimmy says there will be a new EPA standard on conductivity. There have been 3 rulings recently (last 6 months) about reclaimed mining sites. 1-conductivity, 2-downstream watershed impacts (mining companies must assess how their site impacts the downstream watershed) 3-something else. Future proposals in visualizing stream conductivity could do well.

Velocity Bend Sensors:  Current ones max out at 50-60 cm/s. For higher flow speeds, get a more robust backing material (glue on with VHB acrylic) rather than get a shorter one. Get the other material from Flexpoint as well. Without these sensors, we can still calculate flux using a model that relates velocity to stream depth. A good journal is "Flow Measurement and Instrumentation." 

How can we integrate with the River Net sensors--Jimmy will meet with Alice Is there a priority to the list of sensors to be applied there? Nitrate sensors were brought up numerous times at the Montana meeting in August.

Cindy create a data table at the Montana site. 

Summer 2012: Get real time data out from South Elkhorn and also make low-cost sensors compatible with RiverNet for Lilley Cornett Woods.

Jimmy: Nitrogen exposure in an environmental flume. Jimmy building larger flume. There could be a setup in a few years that will allow nitrate sensors to be tested, and also dissolved oxygen. Cindy's grad student on another project is building graphene-based chemical sensors so there could be a connection to that work.

Jimmy will go to Montana over Spring Break and meet with Ric. 

Another couple of projects at Louisville that relate to the work are a microfluidic particle counter for plankton analysis, and energy harvesting for long-term sensor power without batteries.