Seedling Sampling Device Tapered Cutting Board
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing sampling devices for seedlings face challenges in preventing contamination, ensuring clean separation, and maintaining homogeneous growth, as they often damage seedlings during separation and fail to prevent lateral growth or pericarp contamination.
Innovation Solution
A sampling device with a cutting board system where the lower and upper parts are connected, featuring tapered passages to guide and separate seedlings, and a germ carrier made of absorbent material to prevent lateral growth, combined with a cutting edge that strips off pericarp, ensuring clean separation and storage of seedlings in receptacles.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If the upper multiwell plate is lifted to create a gap between plates to separate seedlings, then seedling separation is enabled, but seedlings are damaged and may become entangled
Solution Approach 1:
The invention extracts the harmful action of lifting the entire upper plate by instead using individual cutting edges that slide between the plates to separate seedlings. This removes the mechanical stress and entanglement risk while maintaining separation capability
Solution Approach 2:
A cutting edge is introduced as an intermediary tool between the upper and lower multiwell plates. This cutting edge slides into the gap between plates and performs separation without requiring plate displacement, thus protecting seedlings from damage
2Adaptability or versatility
If individual tubes are used in the lower multiwell plate for separate nutrient supply, then individual seedling cultivation is enabled, but the nutrient supply system becomes complex
Solution Approach 1:
The lower multiwell plate is designed to serve multiple functions: it provides both structural support for individual seedling cultivation and a simplified nutrient delivery system. The plate's design allows nutrient solution to reach individual seedlings without requiring complex individual tube systems
3Reliability
If the cutting board passages are tapered to guide seedlings and remove pericarp, then contamination is prevented, but the structure becomes more complex
Solution Approach 1:
The cutting board passages are designed with tapered geometry specifically at critical locations where seedlings emerge and where pericarp removal occurs. This localized structural feature provides contamination prevention exactly where needed without requiring complex modifications throughout the entire cutting board
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The solution enables simple, reliable, and homogeneous growth of seedlings with reduced maintenance, preventing contamination and ensuring accurate sampling by separating seedlings without damaging them and removing pericarp, thus maintaining sample integrity.
Implementation Method 1
a germ carrier (22) arranged below the cutting device (4) and above the base (2), which is made of an absorbent material for storing liquid
Data Source
Figure 1a
Figure 1b
Figure 2
AI summary
The invention relates to a sampling device (1) for cultivating and sampling seedlings (100) of plants, comprising a base (2) and a cutting device (4) for separating seedlings (100) above the root (104), preferably in the shoot region, and particularly preferably in the hypocotyl region. The cutting device (4) has a cutting board base (6) and a cutting board top (10) arranged on the cutting board base (6), which are slidable relative to each other for separating the seedlings (100) or between which a cutting edge (14) can be inserted for separating the seedlings (100). The cutting board base (6) has a first plurality of openings (8) and the cutting board top (10) has a second plurality of openings (12).The openings of the first plurality of openings (8) in the lower part (6) of the cutting board taper towards the upper part (10), and the upper part (10) of the cutting board has at least one positioning element (16) for positioning receiving containers (20) for receiving the separated sprouts (102) or sprout parts of the seedlings (100) at at least one of the openings of the second plurality of openings (12). The invention further relates to a method and a use.