Hello everyone!
I just encounter the magical world of Arduino and I cannot believe I have lived without it! I'm flooded with Ideas to make so many of the devices I always wanted to! I'm a rookie but I'm learning fast
Anyway, I am currently conducting behavioral research for my university and I need a sensor that is capable of detecting the pressure of a Madagascar Hissing Cockroach. They are not much different than common roaches in size and they tend to spread their weight evenly across all legs.
Previously I built a switch made of paper and paperclips connected to wires that would light on an led whenever the circuit was closed, but the measurement was inaccurate and the data was a nightmare.
A simple "tile" would be perfect, something they can step on basically.
What can I use to detect the pressure of a cockroach? A very sensitive switch of some sort? A specific type of sensor?
This is a pretty urgent project and any advice would be aaaaaaabsolutely welcome and appreciated!
Does it have to be a pressure switch? If you are only looking for presence, I would start with a photoelectric switch. Capacitive proximity switch maybe. Or ultrasonic proximity...
@mikb55 Thanks for the advice! I'll look into it right away, maybe for something even less that 100 g.
@ Paulcet I haven't thought of that!! Usually as the the roaches are reinforced for "accidentally" pressing the switch, they eventually learn to reliably apply pressure more and more frequently. I have to be able to measure the frequency of the behavior, and I am afraid that presence alone would make them stay there indefinitely.
Oh, so the behavior is applying force. But you say their weight is distributed.... Well, I suppose you really want to measure force, so the load cell would be best.
OP, I assume you're familiar with this, but in case you are not,
If you keep hunting around on that site, one thing you'll find is that, as the roaches run faster and faster, they go from running on 6 legs to 4 legs to just 2 legs. When up on 2 legs, their bodies are oriented at an upwards angle, and they are essentially surfing on an air pillow. Insane.
This is a very useful article.
57. Dickinson, M.H. Farley, C.T., Full, R.J., Koehl, M. A. R., Kram, R., and Lehman, S. 2000. How animals move: An integrative view. Science 288, 100-106.
