Welcome to Tests & Protocols, our experimental results section! We are excited to share with you the findings of our latest research.
In this section, you'll find a comprehensive description of our experimental methods, as well as a detailed analysis of the results obtained. We have included videos to help you better understand the experiments presented. Our goal is to provide you with a clear and accessible overview of our tests and their outcomes. We hope that our findings will be of interest and value to you, and we encourage you to explore this section in depth.
Thank you for visiting our website and for your interest in our experiments.
In this section you can discover the first two tests we performed to get familiar with Arduino and the electronic part.
Testing the Vacuum Pump
First we connected the vacuum pump to our circuit. The pump has been used later on to test our device with a regular airflow. You can see that we successfully blew the balloon ! The pump was well-connected and gave us a constant airflow.
Testing the Pressure Sensor
Then we connected a pressure sensor to Arduino to visualize the pressure we send in our device. This was very useful later on to test our olfactometer with air at different pressure. This also allowed us to test our solenoid valves and confirm that they could resist even high pressure.
First 3D Printing
We started printing our first piece to get familiar with CAD drawing and our 3D printer. This piece was designed to support the relays and to connect them together. This piece was successfully printed on our first try!
Goal
- Try the Ultimaker 3D Printers.
- Print the support platform for the 2 relays unit.
Material
- Softwares:
- Ultimaker Cura
- Shaper 3D
- 3D Printers:
- Ultimaker 2+
- Ultimaker 2+ Connect
- Black PLA
How?
The 3D support model is made with Shaper 3D. Then the model is sliced in Ultimaker Cura. Finally, printed with the machine 
!
Results
After the success of this first 3D printing, we started on our bigger piece, the box that would hold our olfactometer together.
3D printing of the box
Goal
- Print the different pieces of our box
- Print a solid and stable base for our device
Material
- Softwares:
- Ultimaker Cura
- Shaper 3D
- 3D Printers:
- Ultimaker 2+
- Ultimaker 2+ Connect
- Metallic silver PLA and green PLA
How?
The entire box model is made with Shaper 3D on ipad. Then the model is sliced in Ultimaker Cura. Finally, printed with the ultimaker 3D printer.
Results
This shows the development of our design over time. We started small and ended up with the bigger design on the right.
Odors preparation
The odors used in the lab are acetophenone (almond) and carvone (mint). To prepare them to put in the vials of the olfactometer, a dilution in mineral oil has to be performed to make the odors less strong. 60% of mineral oil and 40% of odors are mixed together. For the testing phase, we filled the vials with 6ml, it contained 2,4 ml of odor (acetophenone or carvone) and 3,6 ml of mineral oil.
Testing in the Vetere lab with odor
Testing with water at the open lab
We were happy to test our device in the lab with real odor(almond) and to show Maelle how our device worked. It is impossible to see in the video but we were actually able to smell almond when smelling the output tube of our olfactometer.
We then tested the device with water to test different conditions of pressure and time. We were also very happy to see that the air travelled through the tubes and created bubbles in the water as you can see in the video.
How to use the olfactometer
Enjoy our small tutorial on how to use our olfatometer from beginning to end