3D Printed IoT Weather Station Prototype in the Wild

December 26, 2016 | ProgressTH 

Recently, we've been working on a 3D printed, WiFi connected (Internet of Things or IoT) weather station for local farms. We have planned to make three V.1 stations; one for our rooftop garden, and two for farms outside of the city.

We've finally deployed the first V.1 station on the rooftop. We'll work out any issues that arise with this one (including issues transmitting data through the concrete roof), and modify the other two in this series. Finishing the first station required a few extra steps since our last update here.

First, we needed to modify the NodeMCU Arduino code to put the system to sleep for 10 minutes in between transmitting data. This extended the 9V 1600mA sealed lead-acid battery's life from 4-5 hours per full charge to 41 hours.

Then we needed to design and 3D print a bracket assembly to hold the solar panel in place atop the station's mast.

The Arudino code is at the end of the article. We've uploaded the 3D design files for the solar panel bracket to Thingiverse and included the SketchUp 2015 file so people can modify the design to fit the panels they have. 

Above is the read out of the rooftop station. It updates every 10 minutes, day and night. See the Arduino code after the break.  

Reinventing the Brick: Rethinking Traditional Materials

December 21, 2016 | ProgressTH

ArchDaily recently shared research being done by architectural studio Sumart Diseño y Arquitectura SAS in Columbia. It involves redesigning traditional bricks to help reduce heat transfer to building interiors, as well as reduce noise pollution.

The key to achieving this is the bricks' internal structure and their exterior angles. The interior of the bricks, instead of being solid, have a network of channels running through them, allowing heat to dissipate before moving all the way through the brick. The angles of the bricks on the exterior facade also serve as an irregular surface the sun is unable to heat evenly at any given time of the day.

ArchDaily provides a list of objectives the project seeks to achieve:

• Reduce thermal discomfort in order to minimize the use of climate control devices. 
• Address the lack of new sustainable energy solutions in construction that are available to everyone.
• Decrease the amount of installation materials, finishes and construction time.
• Promote the clay industry through design, taking advantage of manpower, adjacent primary materials and traditional industrial systems.

Because of the irregular surface of the exterior, sound waves are also supposedly dissipated more efficiently, helping to reduce noise pollution that would otherwise be transferred to a building's interior through traditional brick walls.

3D Printed IoT Weather Station

December 20, 2016 | ProgressTH 

We've been working on a weather station over the past week or so, ever since we took part in FabCafe Bangkok's FARM HACK 2.0 event. With a team of Thai and Singaporean designers and engineers, a basic data logger emerged to automatically record temperature, humidity, and light level readings from a DHT11 sensor, a basic photoresistor, and coordinated by a WiFi enabled development board called a NodeMCU.

The weather station, designed in SketchUp before being 3D printed and assembled this week. 

The NodeMCU transmits the environmental data from the sensors by WiFi to an online platform called ThingSpeak created specifically for Internet of Things (IoT) applications.

There, you can see live graphs (Weather Station 0001) of your sensor data. ThingSpeak also allows you to download all of your data which you can then put into a spreadsheet either offline, or online using Google Sheets to work on it further.

The basic temperature, humidity, and light level readings were just to work out how to gather and send data. After FARM HACK 2.0 was over, we began building a solar powered station that could be placed anywhere, gather and transmit data, and serve as a platform to add in other sensors (wind speed, rainfall, soil moisture, barometric pressure, etc.) and even link the station into automation to control processes like irrigation.

Helping Farmers: Healthier Food, Stronger Communities

No matter who you are or where you live, there is probably something you can do to help.

December 13, 2016 | ProgressTH 

Farming, under even the best of circumstances, is a risky and difficult occupation. And often, farmers live and work under less than ideal circumstances.

Today, in many communities around the world, there is increasing awareness of where our food comes from, how it is produced, and just how important food security and quality is not just for farmers, but everyone. There is also increasing awareness of the plight many farmers are under, particularly cash crop and monoculture farmers in developing nations who are often taken advantage of by middlemen and large corporations.

People are aware of this, but few people are aware of the many things anyone can do to help improve this situation.

Consume More Conscientiously

Something as simple as being more informed and careful when you shop or eat out can make a difference for farmers.

FabCafe Bangkok's FarmHack 2.0

December 13, 2016 | ProgressTH 

FabCafe Bangkok (Facebook) hosted their second FarmHack event last weekend, bringing together engineers, designers, and farmers to leverage the unique talent and technology that makerspaces bring together to solve agricultural problems.

Two teams formed to work on an Internet-connected weather station and a bee counter for measuring the health of beehives.

While being completely new projects, a lot of the knowledge acquired from the first FarmHack in October was applicable. For instance, the weather station, in its final form, will require solar power to operate. The first FarmHack event included a rooftop garden irrigation system that was solar powered and could be easily adapted to power the weather station.

In just two days, working prototypes of both ideas took shape.

The bee-counter team not only produced a working sensor for detecting bees, but also began creating an online application that visualized bee movements in and out of the hive. Employing the Particle Internet of Things (IoT) platform, they were able to send sensor data to the Internet.

The bee-counter team also branched off and created a beehive design that makes collecting honey less disruptive for beehive activity. A lot was learned about what works and what doesn't work, giving team members or future participants a clear starting point to move forward from if they decide to expand on this idea.

Visualizing Sensor Data

December 13, 2016 | ProgressTH

Over the weekend, FabCafe Bangkok (Facebook) hosted a two-day workshop gathering engineers, designers, and farmers for their second FarmHack event. Two teams worked on two projects; a weather station connected to the Internet, and a bee counter for measuring the health of a bee hive.

Our team worked on the weather station. Using the NodeMCU (a development board with a WiFi chip on board) a light sensor and a combination temperature and humidity sensor, we were able to gather and send 3 readings to the Internet using a service called ThingSpeak.

ThingSpeak allows users to gather and use information for a variety of Internet of Things (IoT) projects. In our case, we wanted to collect and visualize the sensor data.

Visualization via ThingSpeak can be embedded into any website with code automatically produced within your ThingSpeak channel.