Unfortunately, we don't have any soil that we can use yet. In fact, it appeared that our Rocket only wanted to spit out woodchips for us. Luckily, we were able to get a man from Food Waste Experts (the sellers of The Rocket) to service our Rocket.
We now know how to properly work the rocket!
First off, a mysterious plug that was chewed up by a groundhog was important to the Rocket... It powers the fan so that the excess gasses can be vented out.
We also found out that we need an equal part of woodchips for the food we put in. Basically a one for one ratio. We got some woodchips, however... They're all wet. So we need to get those all dry...
We also found out a "recipe" to "reset" the rocket. Three times a day, we need to feed the rocket compost, food, and woodchips. After this, the rocket should be ready to take food and woodchips to give us soil.
It appears that the two of us, along with the occasional student, do not make enough food for the Rocket to truly work. The food is basically turning into dust inside the dry machine.
We have plans to fix this though! We're making a call to action: More food, and more often! Every day we need a bunch of food, almost three times what we've been putting in just by ourselves. We need a working woodchipper so we can get ourselves dry woodchips! We need a hose for water access and to clean the drainer, we need a pitchfork and shovel for our piles, and we need a place to cure what the rocket spits out.
It feels as though we've taken one step forward and ten steps back, but I believe we can do it, all together, with the help of lots of people on campus! We need food from everyone, and we need to recruit more people. I believe with hard work, we can really get this going!
Wednesday, July 25, 2018
Wednesday, July 18, 2018
Soil Nutrients
The majority of plants that grow naturally in the East Coast require sixteen essential nutrients, which they need to have in their soil so that they can thrive and grow. We are hoping that our soil will have these nutrients, and if it doesn't, we will try to add them. Luckily, Rutgers offers soil testing, as kits can be quite expensive the more detailed they are.
The four main nutrients:
- Carbon
- Hydrogen
- Oxygen
- Nitrogen
Five Macro Nutrients: (Macro means big, meaning it needs lots of these)
- Phosphorus
- Sulfur
- Calcium
- Potassium
- Magnesium
Seven Micro Nutrients/Trace Elements: (Micro means small, so it only needs a bit of these or just barely any)
- Boron
- Copper
- Iron
- Manganese
- Molybdenum
- Zinc
- Chlorine
Contaminates it should have very low or no amounts of:
- Arsenic
- Lead
- Mercury
- Nickel
- Cadmium
- Copper
- Flourine
- Zinc
- Manganese
- Boron
Monday, July 2, 2018
Waking Up the Vega-Watt
A few years ago, our campus bought a Vega-Watt for the campus. It was supposed to take in used cooking oil and be fueled by it. It doesn't change the oil besides filtering it, it is simply capable of creating power from the oil with its alternated engine.
However, the machine was never used, and thus rotted away surrounded by old leaves and garbage. We had to fix that!
Here's the open machine |
First off, we had to change the oil in the machine. It seems like perhaps it was filled with oil at some point, and it mixed with rainwater and filled up the reservoir in the engine. We figured out a way to drain the oil using a storm gutter and some dish pans. There was a lot, and we didn't want to contaminate the environment, so we had to be very careful.
Here is Luis undoing the bolt that is holding back all the liquid |
The oil and water were sitting together for so long the water had a weird color to it. |
Now we start to see chunks of oil |
Here comes the oil that was all on the top, as it doesn't mix with water! |
Almost went over the top, but we had just enough room |
Gloves for safety, very weird looking. |
After this all was done, we had to safely get the oil and water mixture into a container so it can be properly disposed. with gloves and a plastic cup, I slowly dumped the mixture into three 1-gallon jugs.
Then everything was finally clean! We still have a lot more work to do, but everything looks much better now.
Until next time!
-Mallory
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