Substrate Made Simple

Abstract

Countries without land that can support crops or countries that regularly experience food-shortages are reliant on importing food to feed their populations. In some cases, this is not a sustainable option. The goal of our project is to automate substrate preparation, a labor-intensive process in food preparation to allow for more efficient production of food with a much smaller working area. Currently to produce large quantities of substrate, many workers are needed to monitor development and make adjustments to promote substrate growth. Our reactor with a wireless sensor network will automatically log information and make the needed adjustments to the substrate over the course of a week, allowing a single person to produce healthy substrate easily in any location. Artificially controlling the climate and other variables will provide a stable and consistent environment for the substrate to develop without reliance on external factors. Training people to use our system will reduce the barrier to entry of food production in conditions that may not be ideal, which we hope will lead to more well-fed people. With adjustable parameters, our project could be easily adapted to controlled fermentation, medicine production, and bio-fuel production.

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