Eggs By The Dozen

Inspiration

We were inspired to tackle the problem by Susan Skalak of Ringadal Farm who needed an efficient solution for monitoring parasites in her sheep, particularly barber pole worms.

What it does

Our web app, EggsByTheDozen creates a reliable, accurate, and cheap method to detect and count parasite eggs in fecal samples of goats and sheep, that specifically minimizes undetected, infected goats.

How we built it

Basic Solution Design Structure -Generates a binary image based on an algorithmically optimized intensity threshold -Extracts elliptical contours with features optimized to the general shape of fecal parasite eggs Quantifying Error -Based on Shalak's criteria to minimize type 2 error, we derived the following error equation, using precision of correct guesses, false positives, and misses.

Challenges we ran into

A major challenge we ran into was the application of the website for the client as we were unsure if they would be able to acquire high-quality images for the algorithm to accurately detect our images. Another image we ran into was that the algorithm would face challenges differentiating between fecal particles and parasites.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Something that we are extremely proud of is developing a highly accurate algorithm that can employ feature detection to accurately and quickly estimate the count of the

What we learned

We learned a lot about algorithm detection and employing good coding practices such as Test Driven Development. Additionally, we learned how to work as a group utilizing good teamwork and friendships.

What's Next for Eggs By The Dozen

1. More Data, More Testing: The next logical step for our team is to apply our algorithm on a larger, real-world scale. This will certainly give us more insights because data was a major setback in this project.

** 2. Expand Parasite Detection:** Currently predominantly searching for barber worms (haemorcus contortus), the project can be expanded to search for features seen in other egg types.

*3. Mobile Application Deployment: * Begin development of mobile application in order to improve user accessibility and marketability.