Clean Air Council's Open Climate Tracker

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The Clean Air Council's Open Climate Tracker is an open-hardware, mobile sensor platform that is designed to gather data over large areas and connect that data to the internet through its built-in mobile mesh network. The goal of the project is to gather city-wide data pertaining to Climate Change and pollution and combine that data with with open databases such as OpenTreeMaps to quantify the effects of tree cover in the city over time. This will allow researchers to quantify the real economic and environmental value to each tree planted. The data will also be opened up to developers who want to include pollution and heat levels in real time to users, thereby helping people know when pollution levels are too high in an area to go outside. The project started at Code for America's hackathon in September 2013, and in addition to support from the Clean Air Council, has tentative support from SEPTA and the EPA. The initial stage of the project was to build an open hardware platform with the specs to handle multi-tasking (measuring, GPS, datalogging, and communication). This step was completed in February 2014. The next step is to develop a set of prototypes to deploy them on city buses and start gathering data across the city over the whole day. This will be the first time that this quantity and resolution of data will be gathered at the city level. This technology can be implemented in rural areas where lone sensors can be placed and data can be harvest by driving or biking by a sensor and uploaded. This will reduce the operational costs of remote sensors tremendously, allowing for researchers to gather more data per dollar spent.

Project Activity
Log Buzz

Update #18

We are ready to start testing the prototype. We are going to make sure that the data is being sent to the SD card. We also just got a donation from TEC-IT of 10 GetBlue licenses so we can transfer information to Android.

GetBlue collects data from Bluetooth SPP, TCP/IP, HTTP and camera scanners automatically in the background. The captured data is forwarded to adjustable target devices, files, online spreadsheets or even injected into 3rd party applications. Bi-directional device communication is supported, manual communication functions for reading and writing data are available as well.

Learn more about GetBlue here: http://www.tec-it.com/en/software/android/getblue/android-smartphone/Default.aspx Follow TEC-IT on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TECIT Follow TEC-IT on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TECITSoftware

Update #17

Last Code for Philly we coded the shared library. This time we're working on reading the temperature sensor and displaying on the LCD screen. We've also posted tons of photos on our Climate Tracker Facebook page! facebook.com/CACclimatetracker

Update #16

Soldered some proto boards. The train is moving!

Update #15

Welcomed many new people to the project. Got everyone set up with GitHub, computer, etc. Discussed integration with OpenTreeMap and potential projects for upcoming Eco hackathon.

Update #14

Social media updated. @climatetracker created. facebook.com/CACclimatetracker also created. Need pictures for both.

Project listed on SciStarter.

Update #13

Got the board working with Bluetooth. Able to connect and control IOs.

Connected to board using free Bluetooth serial program on Android.

Guardian: How open data is being used to hack climate change

Open data campaigners are hoping for an announcement from the Environment Agency in the coming weeks about opening its core flood data. But waiting for governments to open their data troves is not the only way to get your hands on it. In Philadelphia, in the US state of Pennsylvania, a group of ‘civic hackers’ going under the name Code for Philly have decided to take the collection of climate data into their own hands.

Read the full article on www.theguardian.com… Published 14 Apr 2014

Update #12

Got GPS working and writing correct coordinates to LCD. Attempted to get GPS to send data over XBEE, but wasn't yet successful.

Update #11

Code for Philly was just featured on the White House's blog as part of the President's Climate Data Initiative: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/03/19/fact-sheet-president-s-climate-data-initiative-empowering-america-s-comm

Here is the excerpt about the project:

Code for Philly: Using City Buses to Help Monitor Local Climate Change-Related Pollution.
Code for Philly, Code for America’s Philadelphia Brigade, is announcing the development of a new mobile sensor network they aim to run on city buses to gather temperature and pollution data across the city, allowing researchers to track the effects of climate change on and its pollutants in areas across an entire city. This data will be combined with OpenTreeMaps, a platform for crowdsourced tree inventory and urban forestry analysis, to determine the value of trees in combating climate change. The data will also be openly available so developers can incorporate and convey information on local pollution and heat levels in real time to citizens.

Update #10

Worked on getting a more efficient network setup so that we can add more nodes quicker. Moved to using X-CTU, which is also available on Mac. Looked into connecting GPS and other devices directly to the XBee, which would cut cost. Next step is to finalize network setup and begin collecting data remotely.

White House features Open Climate Tracker in fact sheet on President's Climate Data Iniative

Under the heading Private Sector Commitments:

Code for Philly: Using City Buses to Help Monitor Local Climate Change-Related Pollution. Code for Philly, Code for America’s Philadelphia Brigade, is announcing the development of a new mobile sensor network they aim to run on city buses to gather temperature and pollution data across the city, allowing researchers to track the effects of climate change on and its pollutants in areas across an entire city. This data will be combined with OpenTreeMaps, a platform for crowdsourced tree inventory and urban forestry analysis, to determine the value of trees in combating climate change. The data will also be openly available so developers can incorporate and convey information on local pollution and heat levels in real time to citizens.

Read the full article on www.whitehouse.gov… Published 19 Mar 2014

Update #9

Began working on library to make coding and setup quicker and make changes easier to work with.

Also posted Arduino setup instructions and bootloader links to GitHub to aid in new user setup in working with the 1284.

Update #8

FTDIUSBSerialDriver USB driver install; HoRNDIS USB tethering driver Mac OS X Install Preliminary Tests; Josh sketched out flow chart of interactions between sensors/Arduino/Beaglebone; Jack connected OS X to Beaglebone board; This coming week Jack will examine IDE, might reinstall Linux on Beaglebone; Goal is to be able to begin process of examining interaction with Arduino next week

Update #7

![alt text] (https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-sVePFmwBFLo/Up6ZJrQKKVI/AAAAAAAADXI/5tshM2XMpk0/w788-h591-no/13+-+1 "1284p breadboard")

Update #6

Have the breadboard 1284p working. Adding components to test the RAM capacity with the workload.

[id]: https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-sVePFmwBFLo/Up6ZJrQKKVI/AAAAAAAADXI/5tshM2XMpk0/w788-h591-no/13+-+1 "1284p Breadboard"

Next step is to integrate RX/TX serial communication with BeagleBone.

Update #5

Beaglebone Black added to the mix. This lovely device runs Angstrom Linux, and offers huge potential for an affordable price.

Beaglebone Black

Update #4

Sept 22 demo:

10 projects from third annual Apps for Philly Transit hackathon

Philly Transit’s third place finisher was “Septa Climate Tracker.” The app functions as a climate tracker, which the developers are hoping to mass produce, that would be attached to Septa buses as they made their rounds of the city. The trackers would collect and show on the app climate and temperature change as well as pollutant levels all in real time.

Read the full article on technical.ly… Published 2 Oct 2013

Update #3

Began working on RTC library.

Update #2

It turns out that we will not get funding through the Knight Foundation grant for this, however, the Clean Air Council remains interested in pushing this project further, so we are looking for other funding sources, either private or institution donors or grants.