Inspiration
Urban heat islands are a developing problem in developing nations where urbanization is taking place. To encourage better urban planning, we created a module that can be attached to a satellite to measure the number of lumens being reflected off of the Earth's surface. The satellite could be positioned over cities so that the data can be measured and sent back to scientists and engineers to combat heat buildup via solar radiation absorption known as albedo.
What it does
The phone's luminosity sensors measure the luminosity (lux) of a surface. Which the Arduino delivers to the computer. This data is written down on a text file, and a graph is made. Which is then published on to our website.
How we built it
We used an Arduino and 1sheeld to collect the data from our phone, with Pyhon and Matlab being used for data analysis. Then, HTML and CSS were used to make our website.
Challenges we ran into
We could not read the serial output for data collection. We first tried using the Arduino IDE, then Matlab, finally, python was used and it successfully retrieved the serial data and outputted a txt file that could be transferred to Matlab to generate a graph.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We were able to make the sensor work and successfully work with 5 different coding languages. We had to learn the languages during the project, it was difficult but in the end we learned a lot and we're able to create the product that we intended to create.
What we learned
We learned how to link multiple languages together using serial, how to read serial with Python, code a light sensor with Arduino and make a webpage to print data onto.
What's next for Albedo Satellite
The webpage output can be turned into real time graph generation so researchers can monitor the luminosity of cities in real time and perhaps make more comprehensive models from the larger and more long term data set.
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