A Peagrim’s Progress, or, “Let’s get down to pea-zness”

Hello! There has been some trial and error since my last update. I started my experiment with Monica Gagliano’s protocol (overly simplified!):

1. Grow seedlings, 48 of them:

2. Get them used to 8 hours of light, 16 hours dark (circadian rhythm):
3. Train them under decision covers for 3 days:

4. Test them

She had 48 of them. Unfortunately, each of those PVC pipes are $16 each:

PVC (above) x 48 = $768

Well, that’s not very practical for a classroom experiment.

So I tried my DIY version.

1. Take a plant cell box:

2. Make cardboard covers for each of those 48 cells

Fit the covers over the plant cell box:

Make fan/light circuits for them:

Hook them up:

Here is the schematic:

So in this way, 48 plants are being trained with two circuit boards.

That was in theory.

In reality:

1. Cardboard is way too flimsy to stay on the appropriate columns.
2. The fans, 5V, to work with the LittleBits circuits, were way too weak.

Everything kept sliding around, falling apart, as I was supposed to be training them. I was Chi-Fu trying to keep soldiers in line when I needed to be Captain Shang.

The results?

Pea-tiful 🙁 

They grew as straight as sticks, when I was looking for this result:

Plants that grew towards where I presented the fan last, towards the middle of each of the two rows.

The plants also were tall and spindly, meaning they had tried to get to the top as quickly as possible.

So back to the drawing board. We decided to do everything PROPERLY this time. Stick to the protocol. Exactly.

One problem I’d had was everything slipping all over the place so I bolted things down:

We’ll start with a small n of 4. I have another experiment design coming up, but you’ll have to wait until the last post for this and hopefully more exciting data!