The Openly Published Environmental Sensing (OPEnS) Lab (open-sensing.org) is holding the fourth annual OPEnS House on April 20, 2021 from 8-10 am and 4-6 pm Pacific Time via Mozilla Hubs: https://open-sensing.org/VirtualExpo2021. Please visit our virtual poster hall to support the great undergraduate team, and to learn about the OPEnS Lab equipment, capabilities, and current projects.


Pictured below are four examples of the 20 active projects being developed in the OPEnS Lab, almost all of which will be presented at the OPEnS House.

eDNA: A 24-bottle, affordable, open-sourced, remotely deployable, fully automated, and customizable system for extraction and preservation of DNA traces from water bodies.
 

SitkaNet (Chu et al., in press): a customized in-situ sensor system that allows for multiple potential landslide initiation points to be monitored for soil moisture and temperature, atmospheric pressure and temperature, humidity, well pressure, and rainfall. The node transmits the data wirelessly over LoRa to an internet connected hub which uploads the data in real time.
 

Dendrometer: The ultra low-cost Dendrometer created at the OPEnS Lab is being developed to measure the radial trunk fluctuations, a proxy for water stress, for a grapevine with a diameter between 25 and 50 mm at 0.5 micron accuracy with virtually zero hysteresis.  The OPEnS Dendrometer alleviates typical failure points and inaccuracies by using a frame of zero-thermal expansion carbon fiber, and spring tension and a linear magnetic encoder to enable and track movement of the frame.
 

Smart Rock: a submersible sensor suite that monitors pressure, temperature, turbidity, and salinity (EC) of a small stream over time and is designed to be built by anyone with or without extensive experience in electronics.