I have been weighing the options of testing soil in the field vs. on the bench for parameters of interest. The parameters I am focusing on are soil ph, temperature, moisture, fertility, conductivity and organic content. Of these seven, only temperature and moisture must be collected in the field. I believe that the others can be more accurately determined in a bench-top environment. I am developing my hardware designs accordingly. The next steps for me are to track down materials to build this ph probe and figure out how to interface it with an arduino board and relay information back to the field science android app through bluetooth. I am also planning to have a conversation with Mike Deibel this week about using optical measurements for organic content and fertility tests (and possibly munsell color tests). I also have a back-burner interest in geophysical surveying techniques for archeological dig sights that is still very much in the research stage.