Prototype

Initial Ideas

When we started thinking about how to turn our project into a product that could be readily used by the beef industry we wanted something that was portable and easy to use. Initial discussions with industry also pointed out that speed was important, as if it took 24 hours to get the result then the infected cow would have already been processed. To get inspiration we went for a walk around our local pharmacy to see what kind of sensors we could buy and explore. As we were walking through the aisles we saw digital and colour change thermometers, pressure based heart rate monitors, blood glucose meters, and pregnancy tests. While the idea of having a digital output was initially interesting to us, we soon realized that the home pregnancy test was one of the easiest and well known sensors with an output that can be understood by anyone. Another bonus was that the designs have already been optimized to use biological molecules as the recognition elements, just like we were planning to do.

With that in mind we sent two of our male advisors (Robert & Iain) to pick out their favourite pregnancy tests. The fruits of their labour can be seen below (they even got two different kinds!).

Playing with pregnancy Tests

After some very strange looks from our professors, we wanted to disassemble the tests we bought to see what made them tick. Before risking the integrity of the device though, our male prototypers wanted to watch it work, and thankfully the cup of water we dipped it in (no, we didn't get guys to pee on it) was not pregnant. With our curiosity sated we began pulling it apart. The components can be seen below in Figure 2