Salty Sensor Contest

Contributors: Hendrik Hagala (Primary Research), Last Updated: March 17, 2021

Salty Sensor (formerly AquaBuoy: Smart Buoy Project)

Oceans cover 75% of the blue marble we call home. Monitoring environmental conditions in the ocean's ecosystems is vital but difficult task. Until now, deploying sensors was an expensive proposition, limiting research to projects run by universities and a handful of well funded NGO's.  We challenge hackers and makers to use your skills and creativity to help design new, cheaper, open-source hardware and software floating or diving sensor buoys to democratize marine environmental research.  We will kick-off with tech talks by experienced sensor builders and oceanographers.  Teams with winning designs will have the opportunity to visit the OceanBuilders Blue Frontier incubator off the coast of Panama and see their design deployed to monitor the coastal ecosystem.

This contest presents a technically demanding challenge for creating new open-source hardware and software design concepts and draws on a broad variety of skills from across the hacker community, and supports a worthy cause.  A new career and lifestyle on the "blue frontier", where a hacker approach to solving problems is a must, may be the life adventure some DEF CON attendees didn't know they were looking for.

The hackathon will kick-off the first day of DEF CON, and there will be opportunities and space at Hack The Sea Village during normal conference hours for teaming, collaboration, and discussion with experienced seasteaders and sensor designers from projects like UCSD's Argo and DARPA's Ocean of Things each day.

Problem: The world's coral reefs are dying. The ocean's ecosystems are in decline. We need to understand the problem and have it backed up with real data so that we can find solutions.

 

Solution: We would like to build an inexpensive, multi-purpose, remote monitoring buoy which can be reproduced globally so we can get real data to understand the problem and work towards real solutions. The buoy should consist of multiple sensors which can continuously collect scientific research data and transmit it to a central station for analysis. Here is a similar project built by some students (https://www.instructables.com/id/Smart-Buoy/). A typical line of sight radio transmission is 3 miles (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line-of-sight_propagation) unless there is a raised antenna.

 

Potential Collaborators or Similar Work or Youtube videos and other references:

DARPA https://vimeo.com/389269188, https://oceanofthings.darpa.mil/index#Floats

Timeframe: (???)

Size Constraints: (maybe in pounds???)

Target Build Cost: Under $500

Prize: Get credited as a Project Contributor for the Ocean Builders Project, <insert text>

Repository: https://github.com/oceanbuilders

License Requirement:

Open Source: Can be used for private or commercial projects

Software: GNU General Public License (GNU GPL V3) here

Non-Software: Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0) here

Project Areas

• 3D Renderings
• CAD Design
• IoT Development (sensors, arduino’s and raspberry pi’s)
• Software Development (python)

 

Stages

1

2

3

 

 

Points	Required	Feature
100	Yes	Does it float?
300		Does it float in waves over 1m?
200	Yes	Is the body more than 80% 3D printed, laser cut, or made from repurposed recycled object(s) that are easy and cheap to acquire?
150	Yes	Is it waterproof?
100/week		How long will the power run for? Ideally it can run continuously on solar power (maximum 700 points)
150	Yes	Can it collect GPS location data?
100		Can it detect wave height data?
100		Can it detect wave direction?
100		Can it detect wave period (the time in between maximum wave heights?
50		Can it detect turbidity?
300		Can it transmit data to an external/remote station periodically or continuously?
1/GB		Data Storage
50		Can it detect water temperature?
50		Can it collect motion data?
50		Can it detect wind speed?
50		Can it detect wind direction?
200		Is it solar powered?
50		Can it collect salinity data?
100		Can it detect pH?
200		Can it capture 360 degree images on camera 0.5 to 1m above the water?
500		Can it detect sensor data at various depths below the water?

 

Resources:

Low Res: https://www.dropbox.com/s/e5b6xdn56r4bhhx/Aqua%20Buoy_low.jpg?dl=0

Med Res: https://www.dropbox.com/s/qm6oefplz7339pi/AquaBuoy.jpg?dl=0

Draft Outline: https://www.dropbox.com/s/g2tc4ahy8gmc9kt/AquaBuoy.docx?dl=0

 

This project is being developed as an open-source project with the following licensing: