Team:SDSZ-China/Hardware
Hardware
We designed a set of devices to take advantage of Cellulose-Binding Domain, includes a reaction container and an optical detector. When we connect them with pipes and a peristaltic pump, the sensor will be able to continuously inspect the absorbance of solution inside the container, which means the concentration of coenzyme in the reaction container.
The reaction container mainly consists of two slots to hold gauze with enzymes, and two motors to control the elevation of the slot. Each slot has two boards press a piece of gauze, connect to rod and motor by wire. By driving the motor, we can start or cease the reaction by merely raising or dropping the enzyme slot. The two holes on the cap are used by pipes, one for inflow and one for outflow.
The optical detector is another critical device in this system. It contains a 340nm LED with narrow viewing angle, a cuvette holder, and a CCD sensor. CCD is a highly sensitive optical sensor and is used to detect minor changes in light intensity. There are rectangle holes all through the optical path, so only light in right path will reach the sensor.
Software
We programmed an Arduino chip as a controller of the container system. We also designed a software tool to control the motion of the slots and the peristaltic pump and read data from CCD sensor as well. All the codes are attached below.
For Arduino: https://github.com/jianglin332/igem-arduino
For software: https://github.com/pantrain/iGEM2017-SDSZ-China
