Planet Arduino

Bicycle theft is, unfortunately, a very common problem. Most bicycle locks are easy to overcome, which makes bike theft a crime of opportunity. Recovering a stolen one is usually improbable, but this DIY GPS tracker could provide the help that you need.

The GPS tracker, designed by Johan, is like Lojack for your bicycle. If the device detects that the bike has moved, it will send a text message and start tracking the GPS location. It will periodically send an update with the current location, so you can track down your stolen bike (with the help of the police).

The key component in this device is a MKR GSM 1400, which is a microcontroller development board that is capable of sending SMS messages over GSM cellular networks. It uses an ADXL345 three-axis accelerometer to sense when the bike moves. A MKR GPS Shield monitors the unit’s real-time physical location. Power comes from a 4400mAh lipo battery through a SparkFun LiPo Charger Plus board.

Those components are housed within a plastic case that mounts to the bike frame. Johan placed that case underneath his bike lock holder, so it isn’t obvious to would-be thieves. That helps to avoid the possibility of the thief removing the tracker before Johan can recover the bike. If you want to build your own tracker, Johan provides all the schematics and code that you need to tackle the project.

The post DIY GPS tracker helps you locate your stolen bike appeared first on Arduino Blog.

Not only are mosquitoes extremely annoying, they can also carry deadly diseases like malaria, yellow fever, dengue, and the Zika virus. In order to prevent epidemics, Pranav Agarwal has developed the Solar Scare Mosquito — a solar-powered repellent device that allows the insects to lay their larvae at dusk and dawn, then produces intermittent ripples during the day to prevent the offspring from breathing at the surface of standing water.

A finalist in this year’s Hackaday Prize, Agarwal is currently developing the second version of the platform that will be able to sense mosquito presence via a built-in microphone, and even help determine the sex and type of the pest by its wingbeat frequency.

An Arduino MKR GSM 14000 controls the Solar Square Mosquito and provides IoT communication capabilities, with the goal of alerting affected populations to potential outbreaks using a smartphone app.

Clean water is one of our most precious resources, but identifying sources of pollution often means expensive equipment. This can also mean taking multiple water quality readings and somehow aggregating them together to be easily usable. As a solution to both problems, Andrei Florian has developed WaterAid — which was recently named a finalist in this year’s Hackaday Prize.

WaterAid consists of a measurement unit that senses water pH, turbidity, and temperature, as well as atmospheric temperature and humidity. Data is relayed to the system’s backend via a cellular connection, using an onboard MKR GSM 1400. Collected information from one or more devices is then displayed on a Soracom Lagoon dashboard for water monitoring from anywhere in the world!

Not only can a fleet of WaterAids be used to continuously track a river, lake, or any other body of water, but individuals looking to get immediate feedback on quality can utilize the portable tool’s NeoPixel ring for color-coded judgement.

More details on the low-cost and scalable project can be found in Florian’s log here.