Citizen science with homemade solar hive scales€¦ · Simple, inexpensive microcomputer boards...

Andrew Wootton1, Emily Grace2

1The Beekeepers Club Inc and RMIT University, Melbourne Australia2Beeinventive Pty. Ltd. PO Box 8 Suffolk Park NSW 2481 Australia

Citizen science with homemade solar hive scales

Outline

• Original project objectives

• Description of technology

• How the project evolved to the Citizen Science study

• Lessons learned

• Future IoT communications protocols

Objective

Moja Mbili Autonomo SodaqONE

Arduino

Simple, inexpensive microcomputer boards used for DIY projects

An Arduino board is best used for simple repetitive tasks: opening and closing a garage door, reading the outside temperature and reporting it to Twitter, driving a simple robot.

Raspberry Pi is best used when you need a full-fledged computer: driving a more complicated robot, performing multiple tasks, doing intense calculations (as for Bitcoin or encryption)

Digital and analog Input/Output (I/O) pins allow connection of a wide variety of sensors and electronic devices

Sodaq Autonomo

• Atmel Cortex M0+ 32bit microcontroller• 16 Digital I/O Pins • 5V USB power and/or 3.7V LiPo battery• Solar charge controller, up to 500mA

charge current• Capable of running indefinitely using

solar generated power

Load cells

hivetool.org

Rudimentary soldering and programming skills

y = 1.0097x - 0.1682

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Actual weight kg

Validating scale measurements

Rain

Costs

Sodaq + GPRS Bee + SIM $ 130Load Cell Amplifier $ 12Load Cells $ 24Miscellaneous $ 24

Total $ 190

Data handling: ThingSpeak

ThingSpeak™ is an IoT* service that allows you to store and visualize live data streams

Data is sent using an HTTP request

*The Internet of Things (IoT) is a system of computing devices and objects with unique identifiers that transfer data over a network

Smart Actions: ThingSpeak

Trigger Action

eg No data, Tweet,low battery, SMS,weight loss HTTP request (eg Slack)

Slack - Collaborative Messaging Tool

From Workshop to Citizen Science

Flow donates 10 hives with additional sets of load cells

Autonomo capable of running multiple scales through separate digital I/O pins

? Do differences in honey harvesting regime effect total honey yield over a season or alter bee behavior ?

Requires synchronized harvesting, data consistency and good record keeping

Results

• Only a few sites generated usable data

• Several had difficulty mastering technologies (electronics or computer)

• Several failed to follow up problems such as faulty connections (eg moisture or expired SIM cards)

• Systems under my direct control functioned well

• Differences in hive performance meant coordinated harvesting was not possible

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Langstroth Flow

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Flow Langstroth

Inferences

With only limited data so far, little overall differences in honey collection between hive types can be demonstrated

The strength of the colonies had more effect on weight changes than the hives

Tracking hive weights was useful for management decisions such as adding supers and swarm control measures

Data alerts via smart phone were helpful

The Guardian Newspaper (Australian edition) Sunday 5th August

Citizen Science

Obtaining data that is robust enough to answer the original questions is challenging

Citizen Science requires considerable commitment from both participants and principals

Future IoT communications

• Low-power, wide-area network technology (LPWAN)

• LoRaWAN is a long range and low power radio frequency protocol

• SigFox

• Cellular IoT

• NB-IoT uses spare cellular spectrum

• 5G ?

Technologies aimed at low cost and power consumption

LoRaWAN data from a Langstroth(NB: Melbourne in winter)

2021222324252627282930

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LoRa Scale