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Solar Sunflower

Designing a city-wide, open-source, sensor network.

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Our team…

  • Matthew Fritch
  • Jason Blanchard
  • Kevin Clough
  • James Tyack
  • Myself

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Recent additions include:

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  • Danielle Parnes
  • Louis Cook
  • Rob Bender
  • Ben Novack
  • Leslie Birch

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TechCamp Hackathon�February 2013

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Two goals.

Goal 1:

Provide data to policymakers to influence decisions.

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Two goals.

Goal 2:

Give educators and students access to the data to enhance STEAM education.

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The result?

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The original working prototype.

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Solar Sunflower is…

  • An open-source network of sensors that:
    • Collect environmental data
    • Upload the collected data
    • Frame the data in educational and decision-making contexts

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Solar Sunflower is not…

  • Expensive (total cost <$250)
  • Proprietary (even the hardware is open)
  • Centralized (fork us!)

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So.

How does it work?

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Step 1. Sensors collect data

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Step 2. Jeenode sends data

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Step 3. Raspberry Pi packages and uploads data

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Step 4. Rails server collects and organizes the data.

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Step 5. Elementary Students and Top Government Decisionmakers see data

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We currently aggregate

  • Soil moisture readings
  • Temperature and weather data from NOAA.

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Other possibilities include:

  • Pollution
  • Soil chemical composition
  • Sunlight/UV
  • Whatever else we can find a sensor for

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Got it!

What’s new since February?

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Significant changes include…

  • No longer a sunflower (student-designed housing)

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  • Hardware is more energy efficient (3 days vs 1 year)

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  • Raspberry Pi (so schools don’t need an extra computer)

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  • New site design focused on exploration and serendipity

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Got it!

Where’s the project now?

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We’re funded!

  • We got a $10,000 grant from the NOAA's Coastal Non Point Pollution Control Program (administered by PA DEP).
  • AND we applied for another $25,000!

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We’re deploying!

  • We have early kits in two schools presently:
    • Nebinger Elementary
    • Greenfield Elementary
  • We also bought ten kits for our next step!

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Next steps:

  • Finalize Arduino software
  • Refine Raspberry Pi code
  • Deploy to ten schools by Earth Day.
  • Hopefully receive $25k

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Questions?

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Thanks!

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Image credits

  • Arduino - http://newtoarduino.com/index.php/2010/09/arduino-uno/
  • Raspberry Pie - http://www.flickr.com/photos/fabuleuxfab/9320788191/
  • Cloud - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cumulus_clouds_in_fair_weather.jpeg
  • Obama - Photo credit: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images
  • Raspberry Pi - http://www.flickr.com/photos/inrepose/8261408042/
  • Servers - http://www.flickr.com/photos/camknows/4712191684/sizes/o/in/photostream/
  • Banana costume - http://www.flickr.com/photos/willski/4069946069/