Hi folks,
Just joined the list, primarily as a lurker. I am perpetually spread thin on project bandwidth but want to be in touch with the bio community in order to collaborate where there are areas of overlap. My background is in engineering - civil and environmental engineering in school, now doing alot of pavement, geotechnical, and drainage/dewatering design. In my own time I've taken a big technical interest in process control, mainly in hydroponics, environmental control (like HVAC), and beer brewing. All the electronic and mechanical stuff is self-taught so there's been alot of trial and error on my path, but maybe not an order of magnitude more than if I had learned it in school.
I am interested in adding biological elements into designs, and so far have just been shooting from the hip with mixed results. Some applications of interest to me are algae biofuel processors, automatic plant/animal/fungus environmental homeostasis systems, compact grey/blackwater treatment units, closed-loop irrigation with specialized bacterial bioreactor elements, and anything having to do with microbial action to beneficiate rock/sand/spacedust.
I could be of assistance on the DIY PCR project as there is some technical overlap on temperature control and driving peltier elements. Also would be interested in developing hardware and control systems for economical mass production of select organisms.
Looking forward to hacking with y'all!
Hol
Hi Sudoroomies!
We've been planning some cool bio meetups for Counter Culture Labs, and
lots of people were excited about doing one on brewing
kombucha<http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-a-Big-Batch-of-Kombucha/>.
I figured it would be great to do this at sudoroom, and make a joint
sudo/CCL party/workshop out of it!
Do any of you have a nice healthy kombucha "mother" at the moment? We want
to do some microbiology experiments on the culture in the future, so it
should be a natural one that has been propagated for a long time, not
something started from a store-bought bottle (those typically use a single
strain, rather than the complex mixture of bacteria and yeasts you find in
a real kombucha mother).
We have a slot in our meetup calendar penciled in for a kombucha meeting
for the week after next (next week is
bioinformatics<http://www.meetup.com/Counter-Culture-Labs/events/129899352/>!)
I figure that may leave us just enough time to brew a big batch in advance
of the meetup, so we'd have enough kombucha for tasting, and enough mother
to hand out to anyone who wants to participate and brew their own batch!
So... let me know if (a) you have a kombucha mother we can use, (b) would
be interested in brewing up a big batch in advance of the meetup, and/or
(c) would be interested in helping to lead the meetup the week after next
(exact date to be decided)! I can definitely help out with (b) and (c).
Heck, we could even try brewing some mate kombucha...
Patrik
