Algae Incubator Design

The purpose of this capstone team would be to design a tool to measure how deep algae/phytoplankton can grow in Utah Lake. They should develop three separate algae incubator (alginator) designs. Design restraints would be accessibility to individual algal incubators for sampling, consistent depth of incubators, cost analysis, and structural integrity of the design. The designs would have to withstand standard waves in Utah Lake with wind fluctuating from 0 mph to 30 mph over a week-long period. Pending funding the design that most fully fulfills the design parameters would be built by the students. If no funding is found, the capstone students would work with a professor in the Statistics Department to develop an analytical method of the alginator. The goal of this analytical method would be to determine when one algal incubator statistically has more phytoplankton than one at a different depth.