We want to expand citizen science engagement, one 3d-printed station at a time.
3D-Printer weather stations are nothing new – in fact, there are dozens of DIY projects that have created wonderful implementations of stations for anyone to print and deploy. However, many of these stations are designed for electronics enthusiasts not citizen scientists.
The Xplorer project aims to make DIY 3D-printed stations more accessible to anyone, but reducing the electronics complexity, printing time and simplifying the data capture capabilities, all while encouraging the same level of tinkering and user-driven modification typical of DIY projects.
Our initial aims are modest. Funded through ESIP Labs small grant program we were tasked to:
convert the traditional “monolithic” weather station design to a modern, decentralized IoT based design using low-cost, high quality commodity hardware and open-source software,
promote FAIR open data, open science and open engagement into climate and weather data,
install the IoT-based designs into a small Mesonet to demonstrate the capabilities and potential of the design.
But our broader aims are much more ambitous. Ultimately, we want to:
promote broad citizen science participation through weather stations that are low-cost, high quality, easy-to-deploy, 3D-printed, DIY, open-source (hardware and software), atop modern IoT-based architectures,
expand open climate monitoring data and observation networks based on this arachitecture to assess the impact of climate change in under-observed areas and all over the world, and
promote community-driven, shareable, IoT node enhancements that encourage sharing and developing new sensor nodes, measurements and data exchanges.
Upon deployment of the ESIP Xplorer station network in Puerto Rico, an open online monitoring tool will become available. This tool will also be available to all new Xplorer users to share their weather station data with others.
With Freeboard you can quickly assemble a simple dashboard of your own data with no coding or knowledge of data formats.
Our platform works with the realtime CHORDS system out of the box, allowing you to share and export data, visualize relationships between data and build applications atop an easy-to-use API.
This initial project, funded by the Earth Science Informatics Parnters (ESIP) is just the beginning of exciting deployments and upcoming expeditions to inspire you to build your own station and begin sharing your data with other ESIP Xplorers.