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Invention, Intellectual Property, and Income

Dissemination plan for my final project

My final project is scientific device that I first develop for a PhD student.
We plan to write a methodology article that will describe our device. The idea is to provide other researchers with an affordable, open-source tool.

Following this idea, I decided to license my project under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0.

Final project's future development

As I had to adapt to Alexia's PhD planning, I already manufactured three sediment traps for her scientific mission in April 2026. (Alexia is the PhD's student, I'm working for).

Making these traps allowed me to identify some problems/possible improvements:

  • Connectors on the PCB should be moved to ease assembly
  • PCB fastening in the disc dispenser has to be improved
  • Disc dispenser design can be simplified
  • It should be possible to use only one sensor to detect the motor's position, making the system more reliable

After the mission, Alexia's feedback was mainly positive:

  • The trap assembly is fairly easy, even for the underwater part
  • The disc dispenser works as intended

However, she is concerned by the the "agressive" fouling in the area where the traps were installed.
Fouling on the entry grid will the surface trough which the sediment can enter the trap. knowing this surface is important for her experiment. It should not change during the (1 year) test period.

An alternative would be to use copper for the grid, as it's a powerful anti-fouling material.

My plan to fix these problems is:

  • redesign the PCB to improve components placement (schematics doesn't change)
  • redesign the disc dispenser pieces to simplify its assembly
  • add a better way to attach the PCB in the disc dispenser
  • try to find a way to improve the "anti-fouling robustness" of the entry grid