Countries around the world are struggling to meet the demands of their people. They require far more food than they can produce and require imports on top of it. We know this from looking at the data showing an ever growing population boom that is affecting, not only third world nations, but many first world as well. Starvation and famine have become a serious problem and I want to solve that problem for the world. Even if the richest people could buy the food, there is not enough of it.

So what do we do? Well, we need to revigorate the soil. We need to know what nutrients are in the soil to begin with. This will allow us to figure out which crops can flourish. For example, a common plant that is hardy in low nutrient and draught resistant, Abelmoschus Esculentus. commonly known as Okra. Okra also has a lot of health benefits, especially in the digestive system.

So what can we do to help people grow the right food for their soils?

Soil Testing

The basic steps for soil testing include:

collect soil to test
dry soil to remove all moisture (this will in affect, retain the nutrients)
dried soil is mixed with an extractant (covered later)
liquid is extracted and tested to check the nutrient contents
results are given a value between high and low (class A, B ,C)

Extractant

There are many types of extractants. The most common one (used by UF/IFAS) is Mehlich-3. A common mixture (found readily) is:
0.073M Sodium Acetate
+0.520M acetic acid
+0.001M diethylenetriacrmineacetic acid
Buffer the mix to a pH of 4.8

There are other mixtures, however I do not, at this time, have enough information to declare them.

Idea

The idea of this project is quite simple. Devise a machine(s) that can extract the soil and put it in a vial (think ice extraction). Doing this, means any minerals in a typical collection bucket (whether reused or left standing) cannot contaminate the results, thus leading to a more accurate test.

From the collection vial, it can be handled and placed into another machine, if not self contained, where a small needle will pierce the top and inject extractant. The needle will retract and the machine will begin to spin, centrifuge. This will drop all of the solids out of suspension and allow the needle to retrieve the fluid sample.

This fluid will then be extracted and flown through sterile tubing across several sensors. These sensors can include, but are not limited to, photo-optics, probes that lead to another machine, or even drops placed on litmus paper (overly simplified on this option).

This method then allows for for easy replacement/cleaning. If cleaning the equipment, an autoclave would be ideal. Follow that with a vaccum chamber to ensure it stays clean. ISO rooms would be ideal, but may fall out of the realm of plausability, quickly.

Planning

While I have the programming knowledge to achieve most of this (as well as some development boards lying around), I do not know enough about this topic to begin diving into it. I will, however, begin on the mechanical parts while awaiting information from a local college and also from my local Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). As today, 28-09-2024 (Saturday), they are closed. So Monday (30-09-2024) emails will go out to njaes.rutgers.edu and [local NRCS person]@usda.gov for more information.

UPDATE 02-10-2024

Received an email pointing me to another department. I've since emailed them as well and am awaiting, hopefully, a favorable response. Gien the topic of the subject and my professional background, I don't think I will get one, at all.

Since then, I have begun modeling the peristaltic pump roller. Which, despite my presvious attemps at modeling, doesn't look half bad. Models and gifs will be added at a later time. Still have to finaliaze the connection between the front and back plates.

While yes, it would have been better to change the plan to be one-sided, I figured being able to flip it would benefit the rollers. Think of it like a tire rotation. If there is any wobble, it will not wobble in the direction, decreasaing the wobble and allowing it to return to flat and continue until needing to be flipped, again, or replacing the wheels.