Members of the FieldKit team doing some field and user experience testing in Griffith Park in LA. ... [+]
A big challenge for environmental scientists through-out the global south is that the sensors they use to measure biodiversity, water quality or other environmental data, are too expensive, bespoke or difficult to use – but that looks set to change.
Shah Selbe is founder, engineer and conservation technologist at Conservify, whose FieldKit project just won the $125,000 Hackaday Prize.
The project, which is an open-source software/hardware sensor platform, started from an experience he and Canadian “data artist” Jer Thorp had around 2013 during fieldwork in Botswana's Okavango Delta.
“We were working with some field scientists that were using traditional methods to collect data and monitor ecosystems but we attempted to build low cost sensors and a compelling data visualization platform around the work they were doing, “ he said,
“We would develop these sensor systems with partners in the NGO or academic space and continuously end up with the same conclusions: sensors were too expensive, the current offerings were not accommodating to modification or integration with other systems, software around them was horrendous and provided a horrible user experience, and the underlying technology was in great need of a massive update.”
According to Selbe, the team started working on a project with the Wildlife Conservation Society in the Amazon, which led to them teaming up with the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.
Selbe says the team is US-based – for example, some field and user experience testing in Griffith Park in Los Angeles – but there is a strong focus on the global south.
All our partners are in the global south and we work super closely with scientists from Peru, Brazil, Cameroon, Republic of Congo, Sri Lanka, and other areas to make sure what we are building is the right thing for them.
Selbe says those partners tested the different iterations of FieldKit and gave feedback, with the main goal to provide lower costs to scientists in those areas and help reduce the “parachute science” that currently takes place due to lack of local resources.
During December, the FieldKit team will be putting up a long range wide-area network (LoRaWAN) around the Congo Basin Institute Bouamir research camp in the Dja Reserve in Cameroon and deploying some FieldKit weather stations.
“The plan is to continue building on the research being there by using LoRaWAN-connected sensors, including animal GPS tags for things like Hornbills,” he said.
For Selbe, a successful rollout would mean having FieldKit on all continents in varied ecosystems, creating a network of people openly sharing data with other researchers in other countries or regions.
“I would imagine this includes people building FieldKit versions of their own and new sensor modules that can be sold by them or used in ways we don't anticipate it being used – and, as a result of the lower cost, it puts these tools in the hands of people doing environmental justice work or citizen science,” he said,”
“I think water quality is a low hanging fruit, there is a lot of demand for weather stations, which we have developed a low cost one and lots of environmental justice application are very interested in air quality. “
Selbe says the team frequently receives requests for applications they hadn’t thought of.
“Most recently, someone asked for archaeological monitoring that includes temperature, humidity, and seismic activity,” he said, “ I think a lot of interesting things come out when you can just deploy more sensors.”
According to Selbe, their mid-November win of the $125,000 Hackaday Prize at the Hackaday Superconference in Pasadena, California was significant.
“The Hackaday Prize is a huge deal to our team because that is the community we come from,” he said. “I hire engineers that come from the hacking community, so to get an honor from that group means a lot to us. The prize money is a big deal for our nonprofit.
