Salk Institute’s research discovered that controlling the eating and sleeping cycles of fruit flies can reverse chronic diseases in flies. Salk requires an automated system to monitor flies throughout their lifespan while controlling the environment. Ultimately, biologists will apply the data provided by the data system to human studies to prevent or reverse metabolic or neurodegenerative diseases. The project is a continuing project from previous semesters and our biggest goal was to fix their problems from their final design. The biggest problems from the previous year were the glare from the lighting, the fly tube/food orientation, and the camera angle/lens. To fix these issues we mounted an LED grow light on the top side to create a shadow of light instead of a direct light. Upon recommendation from Salk, we laid the fly tubes flat instead of at an angle. We tested multiple cameras and multiple lenses on those cameras. After many test shots and different lighting settings, we found the best output to reduce the fisheye lens. The other part of the project was figuring out the software to be able to track fruit flies, after many trial and error attempts, we were successfully able to track the flies.
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