It has been a while since I\u2019ve been able to post an actual update, having gotten a job, moved, and settled in during the interim. Having met with some small success growing a few basil plants indoors, I decided to branch out into mycoculture, or mushroom growing, as the requirements are a bit stricter, supplying a bit of an engineering challenge in getting it right. While it\u2019s totally true that, given my choice of oyster mushrooms (pleurotus ostreatus) for my first attempt, I could have just as well used a plastic bag and a spray bottle, however that would not have scratched my data-gathering\/total automation itch. Now let us get to the admittedly over-kill list of parts I ended up using.<\/p>\n
During this first week-long time lapse we kept the aquarium light on continuously to provide consistent illumination for the camera, and realized that consistent (and blue) light\u00a0strongly inhibits mushroom growth, which turns out to be a well-established fact<\/a>\u00a0 so for a week we saw very little happen aside from a moderate whitening\u00a0of the surface of the mycelium-log. After a week of watching, we folded and decided to shut it down for the evening and go to bed. Of course, finally given a break from the light, mushrooms immediately appeared over night, so we excitedly resumed the time-lapse capture the following morning, resulting in the second video.<\/p>\n