Smartfin

The ocean may be the most critical part of Earth’s environmental system- mitigating and reversing the effects of climate change on the ocean will be crucial to protecting all life on Earth. Over 3 billion people live within 50 miles of a coast and depend directly on healthy coastal ecosystems for their livelihoods, food, and safety, and coastal cities are growing globally. 

Ocean temperatures and chemistry are changing, and though the ecosystems in the nearshore zone are especially vulnerable to temperature change, they are also difficult to study.  Satellites require in situ validation, and tools like buoys measure fixed points at low sampling rates, can tip over in the waves, and are too expensive to deploy in large numbers.  There’s an urgent need for innovative solutions that fill the gap in data needed to inform strategies for protecting the nearshore ocean against climate change.

Smartfin provides an innovative solution to gather coastal data by crowdsourcing. This is an optimal solution because it mobilizes surfers and paddle boarders, who choose to spend their time in coastal waterways and who care about protecting them, to not only gather robust data quickly and at scale, but at the same time, join a community of people engaged in ocean conservation. 

Objectives

Our goal is to get to a working prototype by improving the telemetry and sensing electronics within the fin. We have tested a few design iterations, and solidified our process for manufacturing fins, so these improvements help drive Smartfin toward a commercial launch. Your job will be to:  

  • Explore and recommend methods of telemetry
  • Work within user requirements to design a PCB, keeping in mind flexibility to add other sensors and form factors in the future
  • Write firmware to transmit the data to an existing Axiom cloud database (https://smartfin.axds.co/#map)
  • At all stages, consider and evaluate business tradeoffs, including cost, user needs, and effectiveness as parameters for a good solution 

Motivations

Smartfin data are useful for a range of applications that  inform coastal adaptation work like protecting and restoring coral reefs, mangroves, and other species, modeling phenomena like upwelling and sea level rise, which are impacted by climate change, and for validating satellite sea surface temperature measurements.  

Our goal is to go beyond gathering data, by also demonstrating to Smartfin users exactly how the data they gather are making an impact. 

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications:

Most importantly, we hope you’re excited about ocean conservation, community science, and are keen to learn. Some of the most important aspects of this project include: 

  • Excitement with regard to ocean conservation and measurement
  • Expertise in PCB design 
  • Experience with building and testing PCBs
  • Working knowledge of solid model program
  • Familiarity with IoT technologies 
  • Firmware development and testing 
  • Excellent communication skills particularly with regards to design decisions and trade offs 


 

Preferred Qualifications:
  • Experience with field work in a marine environment
  • Familiarity with the near shore coastal environment and coastal dynamics
  • Experience with additive manufacturing processes


Details

Project Partner:

Drummond Biles

NDA/IPA:

NDA/IP Required

Number Groups:

4

Project Status:

Accepting Applicants

Website:
https://www.surfsmartfin.com/
Keywords:
PCBCommunicationIoTocean measurementsurfing
Card Image Capstone