This project adresses the challenge in a way that it helps people know the quality of the air that they breathe at home. It consists of a small cloud-like piece of furniture that comes equipped with an air quality sensor (composed of an air duct, a laser beam, a motherboard and a photodiode).
First, air enters the air duct and goes down into the laser beam, once the laser beam hits the fine particulate matter (matter that comes out of things like tobacco smoke, the burning of fuel, etc... and has a size of less than 3.8 microns/0.00038cm), the light refracts into a lot of light rays with varying intensities.
Then the photodiode detects intensity of the light rays, which varies depending on the particulate matter's size, and encodes this information into electrical signals, which are then transmitted to the motherboard.
Finally, the motherboard converts the electrical signals into code that is readable by a computer.
We are hoping to include a NASA-created interactive satellite image in which the user can find useful and real-world data in a friendly way through which everyone can and will understand several pieces of information on particulate matter levels around the world. Specifically, we wish to include the NASA Web WorldWind.
At the beginning we were inspired to take the Purify the Air Challenge since we were excited to find a solution to a daily problem that affects all of us, however, as time went on, we soon found ourselves inspired by nature itself, and by its ability to always resist and adapt to changes in its environment, thus, an idea was born: the Cloud Device.
This project was made to be used mainly indoors. Due to the fact that there is no current cure for the COVID-19, the most effective prevention tool implemented in many countries, is home isolation (staying indoors). Therefore with the increased time of isolation, a Harvard Study shows how concentration of some particles has worsened indoor air quality, making it almost five times worse than outdoor air quality. Consequently we were inspired by this and created Detectia with its Cloud Device which are able to detect those particles and alert its user by an IOS app, the air quality inside their household and gives them tips of how to improve or maintain that quality.
We are able to make these statements since the references that we used are based on data from NASA’s Global Modeling and Data Assimilation.
At first, we had the idea of making a pleasant-to-the-view air quality detector, with a design that would resemble a flower pot. It would be made this way because it is attractive to the eye and because it would be easy to add in the sensor while still being simple and elegant.
Then, we changed our idea, the design would no longer resemble a flower pot, but a cloud instead. We abandoned the flower pot idea because we wished to add led lights to the project, and thought that it would take away the focus that we wanted on the flowers themselves. Thus, we removed the flowers entirely and moved on to make a model based on a cloud.
Our approach to developing this project was a very humane and artistic one due to the fact that we mixed several disciplines from a wide range of studies. The disciplines that we used in this project ranged from artistic ones, used in the processes of making the app as well as the cloud design, to engineering and physics, used in the making of the sensor itself.
Seeing the experiments that have already been carried out on the ISS, as well as the conditions that astronauts live in on the ISS, we were able to come up with the idea, as well as to realize its importance during these times of lockdown.
We used space agency data in the project to find blueprints of previous similar sensors as well as to create a data-friendly app that contains all the needed information about the air quality of your own household.
We used existing data, such as research papers, official websites, and other places like the NASA technical reports server, in order to create a functioning sensor based on the refraction of light as a method of counting and measuring particulate matter.
As for the app, we used information from the NASA Earth Data website about particulate matter (PM) and its sources as well as from USEPA, on the effects that different levels of 2.5 micron PM had on the human body.
Similarly we used Adobe softwares, Canvas, Zoom, Google and Weebly to fully develop the project. Finally our main problems were creating a name as well as finding a way to make the sensor sketches and our greatest achievements were that we agreed and took decisions even at a great distance. Also that we learned that no matter how far we must go, we are united and we can achieve great things.
Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Y4UbuAUyfNmiRnA9ZKgUx8i3C88casuZrZUPnqSRZl4/edit#slide=id.p1
Google Drive with all the graphics/research/etc... we made: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1pqEXJ_K3rMpoyt7Jo9tqtAxEz8Ah2q8r?usp=sharing
On our update section we included several graphics, that explain how our project works and on our webpage too.*