Hardware notebook

Week by week,
23 March to 17 October 2026

The pages below are the notebook itself, exactly as the team laid it out — 94 pages covering 30 weeks. They run top to bottom in one continuous scroll rather than a page at a time, so you can read straight through or jump by week from the index on the left.

When each one was being built

One team, 30 weeks. Every mark is an entry — click one to jump to that week below.

Build timeline W04–W33 · 2026

W07–W33

W18–W32

W13–W30

Humidity box

W05–W12

Imaging station

W13–W13

Floating plate

W17–W17

Pre-pivot

W04–W11

Notebook page 1 — Page 1 of 94

Notebook page 2 — Page 2 of 94

Notebook page 3 — Page 3 of 94

WEEK 04 — Sourcing finished, purchasing frozen — Page 4 of 94

Notebook page 5 — Page 5 of 94

WEEK 05 — Visiting Prof. Verslues — Page 6 of 94

WEEK 06 — Told to drop soil sensing — Page 7 of 94

Notebook page 8 — Page 8 of 94

WEEK 07 — The pivot, and asking Dr. Pak where to start — Page 9 of 94

Notebook page 10 — Page 10 of 94

WEEK 08 — Working out what a stress assay should measure — Page 11 of 94

WEEK 09 — Nothing much happened — Page 12 of 94

WEEK 10 — Four instruments, three people — Page 13 of 94

WEEK 11 — Dropping the fluorometer — Page 14 of 94

Notebook page 15 — Page 15 of 94

WEEK 12 — Humidity box finished, agar photos useless — Page 16 of 94

Notebook page 17 — Page 17 of 94

WEEK 13 — Building the agar plate imaging station — Page 18 of 94

Notebook page 19 — Page 19 of 94

WEEK 13 — Assembly guide tested by handing it over — Page 20 of 94

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WEEK 14 — Bioreactor prototype I built — Page 22 of 94

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WEEK 15 — The cells barely grow in the reactor — Page 24 of 94

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WEEK 15 — Prototype II reaches plateau in two hours — Page 26 of 94

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WEEK 16 — Prof. Chang finds the gap in the design — Page 28 of 94

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WEEK 16 — Wrong unit for the light dose — Page 30 of 94

Notebook page 31 — Page 31 of 94

WEEK 16 — Temperature sensor driving the green channel — Page 32 of 94

Notebook page 33 — Page 33 of 94

WEEK 17 — Making the plate float — Page 34 of 94

Notebook page 35 — Page 35 of 94

WEEK 18 — Iteration 1. Bubbles and drift — Page 36 of 94

Notebook page 37 — Page 37 of 94

WEEK 18 — Iteration 2. Zeroed against the wrong thing — Page 38 of 94

Notebook page 39 — Page 39 of 94

WEEK 18 — Rewriting the spec, and pulling a claim — Page 40 of 94

WEEK 19 — Iteration 3. Response does not double — Page 41 of 94

Notebook page 42 — Page 42 of 94

WEEK 19 — Transmembrane pressure on a screen — Page 43 of 94

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WEEK 20 — LPA V3 finished — Page 45 of 94

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WEEK 20 — Measuring every LED before wiring — Page 47 of 94

Notebook page 48 — Page 48 of 94

WEEK 20 — Reading four times high on the reactor — Page 49 of 94

Notebook page 50 — Page 50 of 94

WEEK 21 — Starting the nineteen-day run — Page 51 of 94

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WEEK 22 — The photometer catches the pump failing — Page 53 of 94

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WEEK 22 — Plotting the 434-hour trace with 1 August marked — Page 55 of 94

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WEEK 23 — Decision matrix: pinch valve actuator — Page 57 of 94

Notebook page 58 — Page 58 of 94

WEEK 23 — Assembling the full rig — Page 59 of 94

Notebook page 60 — Page 60 of 94

WEEK 23 — Rewiring the light plate after it stopped lighting — Page 61 of 94

WEEK 24 — Where the bioreactor stood on 13 August — Page 62 of 94

Notebook page 63 — Page 63 of 94

WEEK 24 — Pressure on the new membrane, and the magnetic pump fails its first job — Page 64 of 94

Notebook page 65 — Page 65 of 94

WEEK 25 — Pressure drop against flow rate — Page 66 of 94

Notebook page 67 — Page 67 of 94

WEEK 25 — Rebuilding the reactor inside a computer case — Page 68 of 94

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WEEK 25 — Calibrating against weighed titanium dioxide — Page 70 of 94

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WEEK 26 — Not ready for the forum — Page 72 of 94

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WEEK 27 — First integrated run: the protectant crosses the membrane — Page 74 of 94

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WEEK 27 — The cased reactor in front of the public — Page 76 of 94

WEEK 28 — Drawing the rig as built, and why every transducer gets a filter — Page 77 of 94

Notebook page 78 — Page 78 of 94

WEEK 29 — A cheaper photometer: fibres in place of the lens and beam splitter — Page 79 of 94

WEEK 29 — First culture under the light plate, and the post snaps on the shaker — Page 80 of 94

Notebook page 81 — Page 81 of 94

WEEK 30 — Black holder, four screws, MOSFETs inside — Page 82 of 94

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WEEK 30 — Soldering the valve power system — Page 84 of 94

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WEEK 31 — Registering a growth-rate forecast before the run — Page 86 of 94

WEEK 32 — Run 5: the reading breaks down after ten hours — Page 87 of 94

Notebook page 88 — Page 88 of 94

WEEK 32 — Silica calibration: both photometers on one series — Page 89 of 94

Notebook page 90 — Page 90 of 94

WEEK 32 — Modelling the lab bioreactor as it is plumbed — Page 91 of 94

WEEK 33 — Run 6: a clean curve, and the forecast passes — Page 92 of 94

Notebook page 93 — Page 93 of 94

WEEK 33 — Auditing the parts list, and finding the pressure scaling wrong — Page 94 of 94