Meet our Product:
The InSpec Spectrometerer
InSpec is a patent-pending spectrophotometer that utilizes an LED light and LDR detector to analyze metal contaminant concentrations in various water sources. Fundamentally, a spectrophotometer measures the amount of photons (the intensity of light) absorbed after passing through a cuvette containing a water sample. In InSpec’s application, the LED light is projected onto the sample. Using different lenses, InSpec can detect and analyze specific metal components in the water simply through a sample of water, and the touch of a button.
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By providing accurate, real-time data on water quality, InSpec empowers environmentalists to make informed decisions. It facilitates proactive measures in pollution control and helps assess the effectiveness of environmental regulations and cleanup efforts. Moreover, InSpec's user-friendly design makes it accessible to a wide range of users, from field researchers to community-based organizations, enhancing local and global environmental monitoring and protection efforts—as well as a better means to monitor the water we're using at home. This widespread applicability is vital for fostering a collective response to environmental challenges and raising awareness about the importance of water conservation and ecosystem health. Implementing InSpec could lead to considerable savings in water purification and health-related costs, potentially reducing expenses by up to 20%, amounting to around $400 million globally.
How does it work?
InSpec’s technology works through three general steps. First, an LED light turns on. For accurate measurements, the light must be illuminated consistently. Second, the light passes through a cuvette containing the sample water. The transparent walls allow the LED light to pass through clearly, ensuring minimal light absorption by the cuvette itself. Third, the LDR detector determines the amount of light that emerges through the cuvette by measuring the number of photons that have passed through the sample. If the photons had encountered hard metal contaminants in the water sample, they would have been absorbed before reaching the LDR detector. Therefore, the fewer photons detected, the more contamination there is.
3D Model Showcase
How We Got There: Our First Prototypes
Before creating InSpec’s final, patent-pending design, we created multiple iterations, each of which led to us designing a customized component that enhanced our final design.
1) We constructed our first visual prototype of InSpec through a simple digital diagram, which enabled us with the vision to create a physical prototype.
2) Our first physical prototype was created mainly from cardboard, featuring a lens and diffraction grating with an adjustable slider. This prototype allowed us to figure out the optimal distance between each part to later create a sophisticated diffraction grating for precise targeting of specific metal contaminants.
A light-dependent resistor (LDR) was positioned behind the cuvette, which served as a cost-effective sensor for future designs.
Currently, we have a 3D-printable model that will enable us to create our finished product.
The final, schematic diagram of InSpec from the birdseye and side view