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In Part 1, we showed you some of the coolest citizen science projects on the web in honor of Global Citizen Science Month. But there were too many to fit into a single post and there are still a lot of projects for you to check out. So, get comfy and let’s take a look!
Citizen Science Badge
Badges are always popular in the maker community and this badge, designed by Sai Yamanoor, gives you the chance to show off your dedication to the citizen science cause, while also contributing to that cause at the same time. It monitors air quality through a BME688 sensor and uploads that data to a cloud server via a cellular modem. At the same time, it listens for specific sounds, like a coffee machine brewing, and indicates that with an automotive-style gauge.
The key to that latter functionality is an Edge Impulse machine learning model that runs on the badge’s Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller. It illustrates what you can accomplish with machine learning “on the edge.”
Color Play: A visible light activity
We adults may love badges, but most of them aren’t going to interest children. Kids love hands-on demonstrations of science and this “Color Play” lesson is perfect for teaching them about how light works — particularly as it relates to color. It consists of a presentation (complete with slideshow!) followed by an interactive activity.
That activity would even be fun for adults, because it shows how colored objects can only reflect wavelengths that are present in the light and that can result in unintuitive visuals. The demonstration only requires common supplies, like paper, markers, and colored translucent film.
Build and test earthquake-proof buildings
This one is great for students that are a bit older, because it integrates physics, engineering, and creativity. It is a bit like the classic “build a bridge with balsa wood” lesson, but much more interactive. Students are given the task of constructing a miniature building from straws and glue, then they get to test their building’s ability to withstand earthquakes.
The “earthquake” comes from a DIY shaker table and a micro:bit development board on the top of the building monitors movement to evaluate the building’s performance. Then the real fun begins: students can adapt their building’s design to improve that performance, such as by adding a tuned mass damper.
Smart hive monitoring
Do you keep bees? Would you like to know how healthy they are, so you can do your part to increase bee populations? This smart hive monitoring system, created by four students, does it exactly that, merging traditional beekeeping with high-tech data collection.
This solar-powered system is controlled by an Arduino MKR WAN 1310 and it monitors several key conditions in a hive: inside humidity, outdoor humidity, and temperature. The solar panel doubles as a brightness sensor! Thanks to the Arduino’s LoRa connectivity, several monitoring systems can work simultaneously, transmitting their data to the cloud for logging and analysis.
Lab incubator monitoring
Like a bee hive, a lab incubator needs to maintain ideal conditions in order to nourish microbiological samples and enable accurate testing. Naveen Kumar’s DIY incubator monitor tracks conditions like temperature, humidity, CO2 levels, brightness, and airflow to facilitate that.
Instead of LoRa communication, this relies on cellular data transfer and so it incorporates a Blues LTE-M Cellular Notecard modem. It receives data from a Seeed Studio XIAO RP2040 development board, which collects sensor readings. Thanks to the cellular connection, this system will work anywhere within range of a cellular tower.
LabGuard: Lab coat detection
Lab coats aren’t just stylish apparel for fashionable scientists — they’re also important protection against dangerous spills and unsightly stains. But as is the case with everything related to safety, people tend to get complacent and forget to put on their lab coats. This device looks at anyone entering the lab and checks to see if they’re wearing their lab coat before it allows entry.
This works using DFRobot products, starting with a FireBeetle ESP32-E development board. It looks at the lab entryway through a HUSKYLENS AI Camera, which automatically identifies humans. When it does, the FireBeetle tells it to use object recognition to find a lab coat. Depending on the result, it plays either a positive or negative message through a DFPlayer Mini MP3 player. If desired, the FireBeetle could even control lab access based on those results via an electronic lock.
b-parasite soil sensor
Maybe you prefer to get out of the lab and work in the field. And maybe “the field” is a shelf with a handful of potted plants. In that case, you’ll want a way to monitor your soil to help your plants grow big and strong. Raphael designed b-parasite to perform that monitoring without any pesky wires.
b-parasite has a stick form factor, so users can shove it directly into the soil. There, it uses capacitance to measure soil moisture levels. Additional sensors measure ambient temperature and humidity. It sends those readings over Bluetooth Low Energy to a bridge, which publishes them over Wi-Fi as MQTT messages that are compatible with software like Home Assistant. That’s clever, because users can set up an automation to trigger watering when the soil becomes too dry.
Cloud-connected wind tunnel
The “E” in STEM stands for “engineering,” and many engineers get to use wind tunnels to evaluate the aerodynamic properties of objects. That’s a lot of fun and everyone should get to do it, so Reuben44 made this DIY wind tunnel that publishes data to the cloud.
You’ve probably seen wind tunnel demonstrations with smoke flowing around the tested object. That’s a nice visual, but hard data is often more useful. This wind tunnel provides that thanks to a load cell connected to the test object. As drag increases, so does the voltage output from the load cell. An ESP32 development board records that, along with air speed, temperature, and humidity. It then uploads the data to the AWS IoT Cloud service over Wi-Fi. Now anyone can make their creations aerodynamic!
Do science!
Between these two articles, we’ve given you a lot of examples of citizen projects and DIY equipment for conducting your own experiments. But the truth is that the only limit is your own creativity and these projects should serve as the inspiration for your own endeavors.
Don’t let budgets, credentials, or equipment get in your way. With a solid understanding of the scientific method and a dedication to proper methodology, the opportunities to participate in science are endless.
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