For their senior design course in Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering (MAE126b) a group of undergraduates decided to work with Dr. Jeff Crooks (Tijuana National Estuarine Research Reserve Research Coordinator) and Dr. Sarah Giddings to design biosensors for oysters. During just one quarter, team members Adrian Urrea, Hsing-Han (Hans) Chung, Emma Schoenthal, Claudio Coleman, and Marika Hale successfully built a prototype that can measure the shell gape of an oyster!! Photos of their test deployments in the SIO seawater facility (thanks to Phil Zerofski, facility manager) and a link to their project website are here:
- the team debating how to set up the oyster in the SIO seawater facility
- sensor calibration
- Jeff Crooks advising the team
- checking the output
- bucket tests first
- oysters being monitored!