Opening the Source and Other Updates

Balancing Academic Commitments

Over the past few months, my focus has been heavily divided between various academic commitments and other research projects which actually help fund my tuition. These took a lot more time out of my schedule than I had originally expected when starting this project. A significant portion of my time was dedicated to preparing for and completing my PhD general exams, which understandably slowed down progress on the handheld pH sensor. Now that I have successfully completed my exams (woooo!!), I can dedicate specific time each week to this project, ensuring steady and focused progress moving forward.

Previously, I was working with some Masters students from Cornell University. Sadly our collaboration has come to end, but at least for good reason, they successfully completed their Masters and graduated in May!

With these academic milestones behind both them and me, I am once again the sole contributor to this project.

Open Source Commitment

A fundamental aspect of my project is the dedication to open sourcing all aspects of the work. I believe in the power of transparency, collaboration, and community-driven innovation. I have been spending a lot of time recently thinking about the specifics of how I want to open source this project. And how far to go. I think I can write a whole other post talking just about my thought process on this, but I am lacking on time this week for multiple posts, and want to get an update sent out. So the short answer is, I am going to open everything I can. The code and hardware designs obviously, but also my lab notebook related to this project. I want to try an open notebook approach and see how this works.

Here’s how I’m making this happen:

• Code: The software developed for this project will be licensed under either the CERN Open Hardware License or the AGPL. The firmware will be licensed under CERN, while other code, such as the phone app or web server, will likely be under AGPL. This ensures that the work can be freely used and improved upon by others.

• Hardware Designs: The hardware designs will be made available under the CERN Open Hardware License. This will allow others to build, modify, and enhance these designs, fostering a community of shared innovation.

• Lab Notebook: An open lab notebook is being maintained, documenting all processes, challenges, and breakthroughs. The licensing approach for the lab notebook and its data is still under consideration. An update will be provided soon, likely as part of an expanded post on open notebook research and what that means.

Here are the two repositories for this project as it is at the moment.

Open Hardware/Firmware: https://github.com/Phalkon-Industries/phoenix-instrument 

Open Notebook: https://github.com/phalkon-industries/phoenix-notebook