HTMAA2026 on Ivan Ren

About me

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

About me

Hi, I’m Ivan and I’ve been interested in growing all sorts of things. I started first with carnivorous plants, then corals, and while learning ways to keep everything alive, I picked up an engineering degree and an interest in environmental sensing and control. I’m excited to fill in all the gaps in my knowledge so that I can build robust systems completely from the ground up using best practices.

Week 1: Ideation

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Week 1: Grow Chamber

Goal: Ideate a grow chamber for my final project
Tools: Sketchpad, Inkscape

Overview

In an attempt to learn something new and prepare for my final project, I decided to use Inkscape to ideate. My original plan was to create a grow chamber for both terrestrial and aquatic organisms.

I usually sketch out my projects on paper to roughly figure out the dimensions, main parts and then focus on the details. For example, I roughly know how I want the heating and cooling systems to be like; in this case, if I want to use thermoelectric devices, I’ll need heatsinks and some method of physically contacting the growing enclosure. With this in mind, I can begin fleshing out the details here of how to interface with the growing enclosure and keep things sealed; this is especially important if I want to raise aquatic organisms in the chamber.

Week 2: Laser Cutting and CAD

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Week 2: Plate Armor

Goal: Laser cut a plate armor arm that bends into shape with living hinges
Tools: FreeCAD, Claude, laser cutter, plywood, cardboard

Overview

When I saw you could cut hinges into flat material, this made me immediately think to plate armor from the past. When I 3D printed things previously, it was pretty tedious because large flat pieces actually take a really long time, especially if they’re high infill. It was really exciting for me to realize I could use laser cutting here instead to cut large pieces, and use hinges to bend them into rough shape.

Week 3: Embedded Programming

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Week 3: A rough position sensor

Goal: Build a rough position sensor from RF signals
Tools: RP2040, op amps, ferrite coils, function generator, oscilloscope

Ideation

Once I realized the pads that were exposed were analog pads, I realized we didn’t have to be limited to simply digital output. With a recent lecture of different localization methods in one of my other classes, I thought it’d be cool if I could build some form of position sensor. To do so, I decided to try receiving and amplifying RF signals that were generated by a transmitter antenna.

Week 4: 3D Scanning and Printing

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Week 4: A peltier holding system

Goal: Design and 3D print an adjustable holder for peltier devices, plus an antenna holder
Tools: CAD, Claude, Prusa and Bambu printers, PETG

Ideation

Peltier holder

While thinking about different ways to mount the TEC modules to the grow chamber, I realized that I wouldn’t want there to only be a predefined shape or size of enclosure. Honestly, to transmit heat better, a thin film like a heavy-duty bag might be the best. If so, there needs to be a way to position and hold the peltier devices in place.

Final project

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Final project

Tentative Plans

I’m tentatively leaning towards a grow chamber. In specific, I would like a small enclosure capable of controlling temperature, flow, and lighting for both aquatic and terrestrial environments. In the past, I’ve attempted to do so but have yet to be more than moderately successful. Now with a little more hands-on experience growing reef organisms and plants, I feel like I’m ready to make another attempt.