Maryland (BARC) Cover crops 2024/2025

MD_2024-10-15

• Came back out a couple minutes ago to find it had started failing the past couple rows. The camera was still flashing and taking photos, but I guess the computer wasn’t receiving them, because it was popping up with a “Missing JPEG” error (although not RAW). I just unplugged the USB-A camera connection and replied ir in and it seems to have fixed it. I sent BBot back to the fourth row and it has resumed imaging.

• Just turned off BBot. It made it to the end of the third species without any software errors, but it looks like the flash battery died at some point and I forgot to switch it out so I’m guessing most of that third species was too dim

MD_2024-10-16

• Seeds were planted last week and some have germinated already. So far, there is growth in white clover, turnip, alfalfa, and camelina. I have not seen any visible germination yet in the buckwheat yet, but I think I remember hearing that one takes a bit longer. The horseweed also has not had any new germination, but we saved the horseweed plants growing in summer and implanted those pots into its section so there are "larger" plants there.

• Due to supply reasons we had to use a different soil from what we have used in the past (I believe the it has less mulch and more moss content if I remember correctly). It looks the same as the previous stuff we used, so shouldn't cause a problem with the images but I guess keep me posted if there is an issue.

• After dumping all the old pots, we swept all of the fabric to get rid of all the old soil spills and other miscellaneous build-up, so the fabric should be a little bit cleaner in the images. Additionally, since that was pretty easy and made it look a lot better, I might just start incorporating sweeping into BBot area maintenance and get more on top of keeping the fabric cleaner aside from picking up the colorful leaves and plant materials that wind up on the fabric.

• We have redone the QR codes so hopefully they are more robust and won't be scattered across the area after storms or wind. The problem we were originally having was finding a way to adhere anything to our rebar caps. Not only were the rebar caps a different plastic than we were using for other components, it was also spray painted black so the adherence would be to the paint, not the cap. We circumnavigated this by using hardware for the base connection. Our new system utilizes two acrylic squares, in which one is connected to the rebar cap using hardware (two screws and a tee-nuts), while the other has a matte weatherproof sticker pasted on top of it. We then used 3M doubles-sided acrylic tape to conjoin the two pieces of acrylic (So in essence: rebar cap is attached to acrylic, which is attached to tape, which is attached to a second piece of acrylic, which is attached to the QR code sticker). We couldn't just put the sticker on the hardware-acrylic since the screws made it a not flat surface and we wanted to ensure the vinyl won't fall off.

• Let me know how the QR codes look in the photos. From what I can see on the BBot the stickers are bright but the QR code is still visible and not impeded, so hopefully those work.

• Redid the spraypaint on the rebar caps before constructing them, so hopefully most of the orange has been covered in the photos.

MD_2024-10-17

• Started the BBot run today at 10:26, so it has been working for over half an hour at this point successfully. Upon turning on, I did have the "Missing JPG" error again, but it was fixed when I unplugged and replugged the USB-C cable from the camera.Also, today the QR codes have water on them since I turned the sprinklers back on yesterday, so curious to see how they are in the photos with water droplets.

• Some point during lunch, the reflective cover we have for the camera fell off (we've been having stronger winds than usual), so that is probably in some photos covering a pot (end of the 4th species, next to QR code 53). Hopefully it wasn't hanging there blocking the camera for a while before falling, which I have come out to find before. @Matt K if you're available, can you check the photos and see if there were any large regions where the camera might have been blocked that I should go back and image? If it is just the one pot, then probably not worth it to go back but I just don't know if it immediately feel or hung there for a while.Also, I'm just going to stop using the reflective camera cover unless there are chances of rain now since it is colder I don't think the camera is at risk of overheating at this point.

MD_2024-10-22

This BBot batch started without issue at 11:57 AM.There will be a few photos before that but those will just be repeats of the ones at 11:57 (didn’t realize the traversal map didn’t clear from the last batch so it started in the “middle” of a row and I had to restart)

NEW

11:25

Also, as for BBot updates, Priya and I worked on getting the globus-upload-system set-up this morning, and it appears that things are working. She said that she’ll be monitoring it throughout the day to check and make sure things are actually getting uploaded. Not sure if any of the previous batches have been uploading or not

MD_2024-10-23

Started this batch at 10:54 (although the bot was on for an hour and a half before that so hopefully a bit more uploading happened). No issues so far!.

cleaned potting area with broom.

MD_2024-10-25

Haven’t gotten BBot to start this batch yet. Having a new issue where the images won’t load. Normally what I get is a “missing JPG” error or something of that nature. Instead it is freezing at “loading image” and won’t update to anything else. And when I click “take image,” the camera takes an image and flashes so it is definitely connected to the system, but I guess either it isn’t sending the data back or the system or the system is having trouble receiving the data. @Priya J if you’re available right now, do the logs reveal anything? Already restarted the system twice and unplugged the camera several times.

Gotcha, that probably when I unplug the camera. When I unplug it, the screen finally updates to the normal “error: JPG RAW missing,” but it isn’t doing it on its own. Walked away for a couple minutes there and came back and it was still just “loading.” I’ll keep trying the standard troubleshooting stuff and hopefully it’ll work at some point lol

Alright, got it working. In between it not working and it working, I took the camera off its mount, took the camera battery out and immediately put it back it in, and let it sit off for like 2 minutes. Not sure if that’s what fixed it or just that me plugging it back into the BBot was better somehow that last time, but it’s taking images now!

Same issue has happened two more times. Happened again at about 1. I turned off the BBot and let it sit for half an hour and that didn’t fix it. Taking the camera off and redoing the battery did work again in that case though. Then it ran for about a species and then it stopped working again. It is still non-operational and this time taking the camera down has not fixed it. Just going to try to keep plugging and playing with the cables and hope it works again and stays working until the end (still 2 species left)

Couldn't get BBot to consistently take photos again so going to call it quits for today unfortunately. Fully collected the first four species but couldn't get in those last two. Also, there'll probably be a decent amount of photos at the end of the batch that are just from me testing, so those can be disregard!

MD_2024-10-28

Was out in the field this morning so couldn’t start a normal BBot run, but I still wanted to get some data after lunch. Decided that for today’s batch I would image the species I couldn’t get to on Friday (so species 5&6), just so that we have some more recent data of them.

Got the BBot started at 2:36 and so far no issues, so it is already a lot better than Friday lol. It’ll probably wrap up at about 4 assuming no problems come up.

Batch went smoothly, no technical issues and it finished at about 3:50. Only thing I noticed at the end of the run was that at some point it looks like the camera slipped a little on its mount and was angled rightward more, so I think that some of the edges of the leftmost pots may have been cut out from the images, sorry about that!

MD_2024-10-29

Started up this batch at 10:34 this morning with no issues. Only thing is the camera slipped on its mount again (I just retightened it as much as a I could) so there may be a photo or two with the amiga in it.

Had the motor 4 emergency e-stop activate halfway through the last species again. Just cleared it, but there are probably a decent number of duplicate images of that middle row.

Finished up the batch at 2:38! Leaving the BBot on for the time being to let it keep uploading.

MD_2024-10-30

Started today’s batch at 10:23. No issues or updates to report.

Had the motor 4 emergency e-stop activate halfway through the last species again. Just cleared it, but there are probably a decent number of duplicate images of that middle row.

Finished up the batch at 2:38! Leaving the BBot on for the time being to let it keep uploading.

MD_2024-11-01

Began this batch at 11:52 after some troubleshooting (I'll expand on that more in a later message), but it seems to be working fine so far.

So BBot was having the same common set of errors this morning: the “Missing JPG/RAW,” “Missing JPG,” and the infinite-loading issue (aka the camera will flash and take a photo but not send it back to the mini-computer). Since this does not seem to be a software issue and it seems to be randomly solved by constant shifting of the camera and unplugging/replugging the camera cable, I’ve been focusing on playing around with the cable. I spent the end of last Friday and this morning troubleshooting and here’s what I found so far:

• To rule out the exterior USB-A port being the cause, I tried plugging the camera cable into ports directly on the minicomputer (including the port that normally receives the outer USB-A cable). I was still getting the same issues, so unless every port in this new mini-computer has an issue or the mini-computer struggles with using them (which both seem very unlikely to me), then this is not a USB-A port issue.

• I used three different cables and tried plugging each one into every USB-A port on the mini-computer. In every case I was able to get the same set of errors, so unless all three of these cables were broken, this is also likely not a cable issue.

• It likely not being the USB-A port or the cables leads me to believe that the issues are caused by the USB-C port on the camera or just the camera itself. I played around with a lot of different options when taking photos (pushing the cable, pulling the cable, holding it every-which way and angle) and I have not been able to find any consistency. With one of the cables, it would consistently work if I held the camera 90 degrees to the right (so the lens perpendicular to the ground with the USB-C port facing the down to the ground) and not work when pointing the camera straight down or the other direction. But then a different cable didn’t follow any of those rules, and would just work whenever I held the camera below the attachment frame and as soon as I would raise it and hook it onto the BBot it would not work anymore. Each cable felt like it worked differently so I have not found a way to solve the errors across the board consistently, neither a way to induce the errors consistently. It just feels like random chance. Also there does not seem to be any gunk in the USB-C port.

I think the next step is to try out the WIR cameras on the BBot, just to see if they consistently work when the BBot camera doesn’t work. I haven’t done that yet because I didn’t want to have to deal with changing the save settings for testing and I needed to get BBot working to get a run in today, so that’ll be something I can explore at a later time.

Came back to BBot after some cover crop WIR, and it looks like it had been taking images of the same spot for 40 minutes. There was no emergency stop notification on either screen, but it was not moving the x or y-axis despite the log saying it was running the command. Rebooting BBot fixed that lack of motor function issue, but then the "loading image" issue returned and persisted, so I called it for the day. It stopped in the middle of the buckwheat, so 1.5 species from the end.

MD_2024-11-04

Began today's batch at 10:00 AM and have had no issues so far!Just two little notes:

• Looks like birds have started taking an interest in the plants again now that they have gotten bigger. Planning on putting up some more of the reflective tape.

• Planning on fertilizing the plants tomorrow now that it has been a couple weeks since planting.