Teamwork at EACH Winter school: Build your own instrument!

Turbidimeter lab at EACH Winter School 2018
Turbidimeter lab at EACH Winter School 2018
Possibly the most exciting activity at the EACH Winter School 2018 is the teamwork aiming at building some simple instrumentsusing the Arduino Integrated Development Environment (https://www.arduino.cc, see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arduino).

The instruments built were thermometer, light intensity meter and turbidimeter (!). All are small and simple, but highly useful devices. The Arduino motherboard is programmed and the obtained data are managed using laptops and a dedicated software. So, instruments can be built at very low cost and virtually everywhere.

 

Measuring with self-made turbidimeter
Measuring with self-made turbidimeter
It is quite a joy to generate analytical data (even if not the most accurate) using an instrument that the student has built his/herself!

Photos (by Ivo leito) show students working in the improvised “instrument manufacturing lab”.

Let there be light! The LED source of the turbidimeter
Let there be light! The LED source of the turbidimeter