Behind the Clay & Circuitry
Living engineering logs documenting physical ceramic glaze firings, sensor benchtop testbeds, and local TinyML compute development for the NIH-01 prototype.
Bosch BME688 Gas Resistance Baseline Calibration
Calibrated baseline MOX gas resistance values (480–590 kΩ) across varied ambient relative humidity levels (28%–65% RH) to eliminate false VOC spike alerts during natural humidity shifts.
Benchtop Verification Notes:
- Configured 3.3V power supply rail with low-noise LDO regulator
- Calculated 24-hour baseline thermal stabilization period for MOX heater element
- Integrated temperature/humidity compensation via Sensirion SHT41 reference
FLIR Lepton 3.5 Thermal Core Isolation Chamber
Engineered an isolated internal thermal chamber using ceramic fiber insulation to prevent ESP32-S3 CPU heat dissipation (0.8W) from bleeding into FLIR thermal sensor measurements.
Benchtop Verification Notes:
- Measured +2.8°C thermal leakage without isolation barrier
- Designed 2.5mm ceramic fiber thermal barrier around compute PCB
- Achieved zero measurable CPU heat leakage into LWIR optical path
High-Temperature Stoneware Ceramic Glaze Firing (1,250°C)
Executed high-firing glaze tests on Karnataka stoneware clay. Achieved zero-porosity vitrification while maintaining precise optical window recessed tolerance (±0.2mm).
Benchtop Verification Notes:
- Formulated 92% recycled ceramic clay body mixture
- 14-hour ramp-up high-firing curve reaching peak 1,250°C
- Verified zero liquid absorption in post-firing water submergence test
ESP32-S3 Benchtop PCB & Local INT8 Model Flash
Flashed quantized INT8 TensorFlow Lite for Microcontrollers (TFLite Micro) model onto ESP32-S3 benchtop developer board for local transpiration state inference.
Benchtop Verification Notes:
- Model footprint: 184KB Flash, 62KB SRAM allocation
- Average inference latency: 38ms per sensor fusion frame
- Verified zero external cloud network calls during local inference
Benchtop Photo Journal
Photographic documentation of physical hardware tests, ceramic kiln events, and sensor array setups. Photos are published as physical evidence becomes available.
BME688 Breakout Wiring
12 Aug 2026
Benchtop breadboard wiring of BME688 + SHT41 to ESP32-S3 DevKit. Photo to be uploaded.
Ceramic Glaze Firing — Kiln Exit
28 Jul 2026
Post-firing stoneware ceramic body at 1,250°C vitrification. Photographic documentation planned.
FLIR Isolation Chamber
05 Aug 2026
Ceramic fiber thermal barrier around compute PCB. Physical photograph to follow hardware assembly.
ESP32-S3 UART Serial Output
18 Jul 2026
Terminal output showing INT8 inference logs at 38ms latency. Screenshot to be published.
Monstera deliciosa Test Subject
Aug 2026
Specimen used in Research Note #001 thermal transpiration trial. Photo documentation forthcoming.
Next Physical Prototype Assembly
Phase 05 (Planned)
NIH-01 ceramic prototype photographic documentation. Awaiting PCB fabrication and enclosure assembly.
Physical photographs will replace placeholder slots as hardware development progresses in Phase 05. Photographic evidence is a core part of our Truth Before Growth research transparency commitment.
Join the Founding Prototype Cohort
Be among the first researchers, developers, and collectors to evaluate early benchtop telemetry models and hardware testbed updates.