Tote-Size portable incubator for rapid field work

Methods

Summary

We will conform to several best practices and principles:

• We work "in the light". Everything we do is (already) completely open source and remain so.
• We publish everything as soon as we produce it under appropriate open source licenses.
• To make our work extensible, we define and document interfaces, such as between the control module and the incubation chamber, so they can be separately modified.
• We will use standard replicatable printed circuit board (PCB) design to make the project physically tough for use in the field.
• Our Arduino code will conform to best practices.
• We use standard commercial off-the-shelf electronic components so that anybody can replicate this work cheaply.

In the field testing, we will use proven User Experience design techniques to make sure the device is as usable as possible. We will interview biologists and sanitation engineers before we have manufactured the incubators to inform the design. Then, quite essentially, we will give the incubators to field scientists to use in the field. Our previous designs have been used in Iraq and Tanzania, which informed our current design, but we look forward to doing even more work.

Challenges

Field use hand usability requires:

• Careful attention to data logging, so that the user credibly believes incubation temperature has been maintained throughout the process.
• Software and UX design to make the product easily usable with a simple rotary encoder in the field, even when wearing gloves.
• Ruggedness to survive drops, dings, rain, attacks by wolverines, hot and cold conditions, etc.

Pre Analysis Plan

Unlike a typical statistical analysis, we have no hypothesis---we're just trying to build a portable, rugged incubator that people love to advance science.