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All components of an indirect calorimetric are available in my lab. We look for student(s) who are interested in assembling the pieces into a functioning unit and computerizing the system with the existing software. This unit will be used to continuously collect the real-time (24~48 hours) data on mouse oxygen consumption, CO2 production, activity and food intake. This will be very useful instrument for us to study the genetic and pharmacological effects of our targets on the treatment and prevention of obesity-diabetes. We have all components of an indirect calorimeter, mainly including oxygen sensors, CO2 sensors, air flow controls, mouse chambers, pipes, wires, computer, all types of switches and controls, software, manual instruction. The commercial instrument that is similar to this unit is the CLAM system (costing $150,000), the principle and working mechanism of which can be found at the web site of Columbus Instruments.
Attempting to understand the design requirements.
Formulating ideas of possible design solutions.
| Week | Reporting Period Beginning | Activities |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | January 26 | Picked our project and set up a meeting with our client. |
| 2 | February 2 | Individual research on calorimetry as well as our client meeting to discuss the project specifics. Also, we wrote a rough draft of the PDS. |
| 3 | February 9 | Took inventory of all the parts Dr. Cai has access to. Met with Dr. Keesey to discuss the system he made. |
| 4 | February 16 | Met with Dr. Keesey to discuss his push system as well as discussed the possibility of a pull system. Found O2 and CO2 gas mixtures to use for sensor testing. Started the sensors and analyzers in order to test them. |
| 5 | February 23 | Met with Dr. Keesey to learn how to calibrate the sensor. Did some organization of the equipment. Found the correct levels of CO2 and O2 mixtures for calibration. |
| 6 | March 2 | Worked on midsemester presentation. |
| 7 | March 9 | Worked on midsemester paper. |
| 8 | March 16 | Finished Midsemester report. Found information about ordering gas tanks for sensor and analyzer calibration. |
| 9 | March 23 | Discussed our presentation grades with our advisor as well as our project status, We gained access to the gas delivery service homepage but were unable to determine the cost of the gas mixture we need to calibrate the sensors. We looked over old invoices of the equipment we may use to determine what the cost of repairs are. |
| 10 | March 30 | Our project is drastically changed because the Univeristy is going to buy a CLAMS system to use instead of our system. Since we no longer have funding we will make a hypothetical prototype and attempt to determine the cost it would take to make the system functuional. |
| 11 | April 6 | Started setting up a one cage system, connecting everything we could. We turned on the CO2 and O2 sensors and analyzers and got a reading from the CO2 analyzer. The electronics of the data acquisition and processing looks to be fairly complicated but Jon has declared it possbile to figure out. |
| 12 | April 13 | Research was done to understand the electronics of the data aquisition and software. It seems we are missing some cables which connect the analyzers to the computer. We are meeting with Dr. Scholler on Thursday to get some help on this matter. |
| 13 | April 20 | Moved all the equipment from Dr. Cai’s lab into ECB in preparation for the poster presentation. Connected the one cage system togather and to an ELVIS board in the instrumentation lab in ECB. We wrote a short program which allows us to view and record the signal generated by the CO2 analyzer. Our poster was put togather and will be printed for our presentaion |
| 14 | April 27 | |
| 15 | May 4 |
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PDS version 3 (Feb 8 2007, 28 kb) |
 |
Midsemester Presentation (Mar 9 2007, 8439 kb) |
|
Midsemester Paper (Mar 16 2007, 434 kb) |
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Final Poster (May 7 2007, 108 kb) |
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Final Paper (May 9 2007, 350 kb) |
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PDS version 4 (May 9 2007, 29 kb) |
