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WILDLABS logoWildlabs.net : The conservation technology network

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Open Source Solutions / Feed

This group is for anyone interested in open-source technologies for ecology and conservation. We welcome contributions from both makers and users, whether active or prospective. Here, we believe in the need for open-source hardware and software to do good science and research. It is a place to share novel or existing technologies, exchange resources, discuss new projects, ask for advice, find collaborators, and advocate for adopting open-source technologies.

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discussion

WILDLABS AWARDS 2024 - TimeLord: A low-cost, low-power and low-difficulty timer board to control battery-powered devices

Rob Appleby

5 April 2024 3:29pm

Hi everyone,@Alasdair from Arribada Initiative and I are so pleased to announce our TimeLord project as one of the lucky winners of this year's WILDLABS Awards. What is TimeLord...

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Alasdair Davies

16 April 2024 9:34am

Thanks @Freaklabs, I think you'll really enjoy getting involved with this too as we're looking for input from makers in the community to get the most from the approach and to capture features and usability ideas from a large number of people.

I've a new modular drop-off tag build using @Rob_Appleby's original SensorDrop board that I think would be great for this project too to see if we can drop different compartments, or do various different timed events with the one TimeLord board.

Most importantly, we have to make it play a MIDI version of the DoctorWho theme song when you arm the device. That has to be the #1 feature if you ask me!

 

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article

The Variety Hour: 2024 Lineup

Alex Rood

22 March 2024 4:30pm

You’re invited to the WILDLABS Variety Hour, a monthly event that connects you to conservation tech's most exciting projects, research, and ideas. We can't wait to bring you a whole new season of speakers and...

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discussion

Passionate engineer offering funding and tech solutions pro-bono.

Krasi

23 January 2024 12:06pm

My name is Krasi Georgiev and I run an initiative focused on providing funding and tech solutions for stories with a real-world impact. The main reason is that I am passionate...

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Danilo

26 January 2024 3:18pm

Hi Krasi! Greetings from Brazil!



That's a cool journey you've started! Congratulations. And I felt like theSearchLife resonates with the work I'm involved round here. In a nutshell, I live at the heart of the largest remaining of Atlantic forest in the planet - one of the most biodiverse biomes that exist. The subregion where I live is named after and bathed by the "Rio Sagrado" (Sacred River), a magnificent water body with a very rich cultural significance to the region (it has served as a safe zone for fleeing slaves). Well, the river and the entire bioregion is currently under the threat of a truly devastating railroad project which, to say the least is planned to cut through over 100 water springs! 



In face of that the local community (myself included) has been mobilizing to raise awareness of the issue and hopefully stop this madness (fueled by strong international forces). One of the ways we've been fighting this is through the seeking of the recognition of the sacred river as an entity of legal rights, who can manifest itself in court, against such threats. And to illustrate what this would look like, I've been developing this AI (LLM) powered avatar for the river, which could maybe serve as its human-relatable voice. An existing prototype of such avatar is available here. It has been fine-tuned with over 20 scientific papers on the Sacred River watershed.



And right now myself and other are mobilizing to manifest the conditions/resources to develop a next version of the avatar, which would include remote sensing capacities so the avatar is directly connected to the river and can possibly write full scientific reports on its physical properties (i.e. water quality) and the surrounding biodiversity. In fact, myself and 3 other members of the WildLabs community have just applied to the WildLabs Grant program in order to accomplish that. Hopefully the results are positive.



Finally, it's worth mentioning that our mobilization around providing an expression medium for the river has been multimodal, including the creation of a shortfilm based on theatrical mobilizations we did during a fest dedicated to the river and its surrounding more-than-human communities. You can check that out here:



 

https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/850179762



 

Let's chat if any of that catches your interest!

Cheers!

Krasi

2 February 2024 1:22pm

Hi Danilo. you seem very passionate about this initiative which is a good start.
It is an interesting coincidence that I am starting another project for the coral reefs in the Philipines which also requires water analytics so I can probably work on both projects at the same time.

Let's that have a call and discuss, will send you a pm with my contact details

There is a tech glitch and I don't get email notifications from here.

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discussion

Monitoring setup  in the forest based on the wifi with 2.4 GHz frequency.

Dilip Singh

30 December 2023 4:39pm

I am planning to setup the network using the wireless with frequency 2.4GHz. Can I get the the data for this signal distortion in the forest area?Is there any any special...

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AMANI NGOMA

18 January 2024 8:17pm

Hi Dilip,

I do not have data about signal distortion in a forest area and with the signal you are intended to use.

However, in a savannah environment, when I put a tour on the highest point of the park, Lora signal (avg 900MHz) is less distorted than WiFi signal (2.4GHz). This is normal as a physics law: the frequency determines the wave length, and the less the length (obviously the less the frequency), the less obstructed the signal.

So, without interfering with your design, I would say that in a forest configuration, WiFi will need more access points deployed and may be more costly, and in your context, even when using LoRa, you will need more gateways than I have in a savannah.

To design the approximate number of gateways, you may need to use terrain Visibility analysis.

To design the cameras deployment, you will need to comply with the sampling methods defined in your research. However, if it is on for surveillance reasons, you may need to rely on terrain visibility analysis also.

Best regards.

Bill Gray

22 January 2024 6:22pm

I've got quite a lot of experience with wireless in forested areas and over long(ish) ranges.

Using a wifi mesh is totally possible, and it will work.  You will likely not get great range between units.  You will likely need to have your mesh be fairly adaptable as conditions change.

Wireless and forests interact in somewhat unpredictable ways it turns out.  Generally, wireless is attenuated by water in the line-of-sight between stations.  From the Wifi perspective, a tree is just a lot of water up in the air.  Denser forest = more water = worse communications. LoRa @ 900Mhz is less prone to this issue than Wifi @ 2.4Ghz and way less prone than Wifi @ 5Ghz.  But LoRa is also fairly low data rate.  Streaming video via LoRa is possible with a lot of work, but video streaming is not at all what LoRa was build to do, and it does it quite poorly at best.

The real issue I see here is to do with power levels.  CCTV, audio streaming, etc are high data rate activities.  You may need quite a lot of power to run these systems effectively both for the initial data collection and then for the communications.

If you are planning to run mains power to each of these units, you may be better off running an ethernet cable as well.  Alternatively, you can run "power line" networking, which has remarkably good bandwidth and gets you back down to a single twisted pair for power and communications.

If you are planning to run off batteries and/or solar, you may need a somewhat large power system to support your application?

Arky

23 January 2024 1:19am

 

I would recommend going with Ubiquity 2.4Ghz devices which have performed relatively well in dense foliage of the California Redwood forests. It took a lot of tweaking to find paths through the dense tree cover as mentioned in the previous posts. 

 

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discussion

How are Outdoor Fire Detection Systems Adapted for Small Forest Areas, Considering the Predominance of Indoor Fire Detectors?

Aditya Pal

8 January 2024 4:27pm

How are fire detection mechanisms tailored for outdoor environments, particularly in small forest areas, given that most fire and smoke detectors are designed for indoor use?

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Bill Gray

22 January 2024 6:35pm

Fire detection is a sort of broad idea.  Usually people detect the products of fire, and most often this is smoke.

Many home fire detectors in the US use a radioactive source and measure the absorption of the radiation by the air.  More smoke means more absorption.

For outdoor fire detection, PM2.5 can be a very good smoke proxy, and outdoor PM2.5 sensing is pretty accessible.

This one is very popular in my area. 

Read "Classic - Air Quality Monitor | AQI PM2.5 Indoor/Outdoor Sensor – PurpleAir" on PurpleAir

Classic - Air Quality Monitor | AQI PM2.5 Indoor/Outdoor Sensor – PurpleAir

The PurpleAir Classic air quality monitor is the original and popular PurpleAir sensor. It measures real-time PM2.5 concentrations for residential, commercial, or industrial use and can be installed indoors or outdoors. Built-in WiFi enables the air quality measurement device to transmit data to the real-time PurpleAir AQI Map, which is stored and made available to any smart device. The PA-II is available in two editions. The SD edition includes an onboard SD logger to record and store data without a WiFi connection. Please note: This sensor does not come with a power adaptor. Find a suitable OUTDOOR-rated adaptor here or use your own USB power source (any 5V, 1.2 to 2.4 amp adaptor will work).

PurpleAir

 

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discussion

Open-source kinetic energy harvesting collar - Kinefox

Thomas Gray

1 November 2023 5:31pm

Hello everyone,I ran across an article today (at the bottom) that talks about an open-source, kinetic energy harvesting collar ("Kinefox"). It sounds pretty neat...anyways,...

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Herdhanu Jayanto

17 January 2024 7:45pm

This is super cool! 

I was wondering if the development will further touch marine or aquatic animals, make it like water wheel (even might give burden to aerodynamic). Thank you for sharing!

Best,

Dhanu

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article

Restoring the Mara Elephant Population Using Coexistence Tech Solutions with Mara Elephant Project's Wilson Sairowua

Esther Githinji

20 October 2023 1:31pm

Listen in on our interview with Mara Elephant Project’s Tracking Manager, Wilson Sairowua, as he explains how MEP is using software, geofencing and drone technologies to resolve human-elephant conflict across Maasai...

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Frank van der Most

27 May 2024 3:54pm

Super interesting interview! I especially liked the last minutes where Wilson Sairowua explains about the experimental farm to see which crops elephants like and dislike. Just...
Esther Githinji

28 May 2024 8:12am

Great suggestion @Frank_van_der_Most ! It's really interesting to see conservation tech interacting with other forms of environmental tech. There is definitely room for effective...
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discussion

Experience with SeeedStudio T1000 as tracker and data logger.  

Salman Faris

4 September 2023 1:42pm

Hi Everyone. Recently, I got a chance to work work the SeeedStudio T1000 tracker and I made a tracker and data logger with it. It comes with a LoRa module to transmit the...

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Rob Appleby

8 September 2023 4:37pm

ooh very cool Salman! Amazing how much tracking devices have come down in price over the years and LoRa/LoRawan is just such a perfect fit for GPS data. Thanks heaps for sharing.

All the best,

Rob

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event

AI for Eagles Challenge

Tjomme Dooper

7 July 2023 10:03am

In the AI for Eagles Challenge, by FruitPunch AI 50 AI enthusiasts and experts from all over the globe will be training classifiers to recognize golden and white-tailed eagles in flight and classify them into age groups...

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article

New Add-ons for Mbaza AI

Marundu Muturi

4 July 2023 12:00pm

At Appsilon, we are always working to enable our users to get the most out of our solutions. With this in mind, we are happy to introduce two new add-ons to Mbaza AI. 

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