丁香园AV

It started with a goldfish. Husband and wife graduands Kyle and Leonie Tharratt, who met at 丁香园AV and married in 2013, received the unwanted pet from a family friend. 

Four years later, they are keen aquarists with 13 fish (and a colony of shrimp)鈥攁 passion that inspired their mechatronic systems engineering final-year capstone project.

The convocating couple is part of a team of five students, including graduand Spencer Arbour, which has created a remote, real-time water-monitoring system that alerts home aquarium owners to potential problems. 

The team expects its innovation鈥攄eveloped as part of business-incubator program Tech Entrepreneurship@丁香园AV鈥攃ould benefit Canada鈥檚 1.7 million aquarium-owning households, and beyond.

The idea came partly from personal experience. Their plan to add a new fish to their tank was foiled when they discovered the seller鈥檚 aquarium heater had malfunctioned during a vacation, killing all of the fish. 

So when the capstone team came together to brainstorm ideas, they decided to use their engineering acumen to help others avoid this sinking feeling.

The Triton Monitor, as it鈥檚 called, brings the concept of the manual chemical test kit into the digital age. It automatically tracks critical water parameters, such as pH and ammonia levels, and temperature; and uses WiFi to send owners real-time notifications of troublesome readings.

Collaborating with a spouse on a project has its perks, and its pitfalls.

鈥淏ecause we know each other so well, we can take feedback without getting offended,鈥� says Kyle.

鈥淏ut there鈥檚 no escape if you don鈥檛 get along鈥攜ou kind of need your spouse to like you,鈥� adds Leonie.

The couple鈥檚 first encounter was more robot wars than Romeo and Juliet. 

鈥淲e met in a first-year mechatronics class when we were battling the sumo-wrestling robots we had built鈥擪yle鈥檚 was one of the few that managed to beat mine,鈥� says Leonie. 

They started dating, married two years later, and now they will cross the convocation dais together. 

The duo hopes to secure funding to take the project forward, but they鈥檙e also tackling full-time careers. Kyle works as a manufacturing engineer at Creation Technologies and Leonie鈥攃urrently working at BC Hydro鈥攈opes to pursue a career in control-systems engineering.