Slime Mold Monitoring and Imaging System
LMU EE/CS Department Senior Capstone Project
Physarum Polycephalum Plasmodium (Slime Mold)
Overview:
This repository contains the code for Raspbeery Pi camera and growth tracking system user interface. The system periodically takes pictures of the slime as it grows and then stores the pictures locally. Biology department students and staff can access the photos remotely by connecting to the Pi with RealVNC viewer or directly from the Pi via touchscreen. Also contained in this repository are the programs used to calculate sample height based on the spectral data produced by the OCT system.
If you would like to try and build these systems yourself, download the guide contained in 'hardware_instructions'
Purpose:
Phase 1: SMICS (Slime Mold Incubator Camera System)
Provide LMU Biology Department with a camera system for monitoring the growth of slime mold, a simple yet fascinating amoeba.
This video demonstrates slime mold's impressive intelligence.
Phase 2: OCT (Optical Coherence Tomography)
Build and test an Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) system that generates 3D images of biological samples such as slime mold. The baseline task of the team is to create an interferometer that can measure the height and density of a sample at a single point. This process can then be used to generate 3D models of the sample by scanning a 2D area and plotting the heights in 3D.
Status:
SMICS has been delivered to the LMU Biology Department and is in use. The interferometer was successfully set up and can measure a sample height with resolution of 25 micrometer over a 9mm range (sample heights can be up to 9mm).
