Welcome to EnviroDIY, a community for do-it-yourself environmental science and monitoring. EnviroDIY is part of WikiWatershed, an initiative of Stroud Water Research Center designed to help people advance knowledge and stewardship of fresh water. New to EnviroDIY? Start here
Showcase
Highlighting projects we’re working on and gadgets we’ve built.
Next generation rugged datalogger
Our Arduino datalogger designs have gone through a few improvements since our original models four years ago. This past year we refined the design even more and have come up with our most rugged and reliable system yet. The datalogger is still based on the Seeeduino Stalker board, which has solar battery charging circuitry, memory card slot, real time clock, and a socket for an XBee radio or ce...[Read More]
Stone Control Structure – Flume
What is a good way to gage a stream without using a weir or an engineered flume? How about this stone control structure / flume? Having a stable control is invaluable for developing a good stream flow rating curve. A rating curve relates the depth of the stream to the flow at a particular point. By a stable control I am referring to a cross-section of stream that will not change over time due ...[Read More]
midStream – Making real time data publicly available
At the Stroud Water Research Center, one of our first priorities for the Arduino based sensors that Shannon Hicks has been developing has been to make the raw data publicly available online in a readily sharable format. For now, we’re formatting our data as WaterML 1.0 and sharing it as a WaterOneFlow webservice. WaterML and the webservice specifications were originally developed by the Co...[Read More]
#StormSnakes for Stormwater Run-off
Greetings, I’m Leslie Birch and I’m an anomaly — a tech artist with a strong interest in water and other environmental causes. Currently I’m at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education as a LandLab artist, tasked with creating an artistic intervention for stormwater run-off at their site. The tech side of me wanted to do something with monitoring, while the artist ...[Read More]
Ultrasonic water depth sensor
We have been using submersible pressure transducers for water level measurements for many years, but some of our installations are in areas with very shallow water that might freeze during the winter. Most pressure transducers will be damaged if they are in water that freezes, so we’ve been experimenting with an ultrasonic rangefinder that will allow us to measure the water level from above...[Read More]
SDI-12 sensor display
Whenever we install a sensor in the field, it’s always helpful to make sure it is reading properly before connecting it to the datalogger. Having a display to show the live data from a sensor is also helpful when doing calibration and testing of the sensor in the lab. We use a variety of sensors from Decagon Devices. Their high-quality, research grade sensors output the data in two format...[Read More]
