Charon Sunlight Study
By Bailey, Cecilia, and Summer
The Charon Sunlight Study was a research study we conducted to calculate temperature and brightness (from sunlight) outside of the Green Hall, Berry College's Business School. We deployed 4 sensors using ESP32's on the East, West, North, and South sides of the building, and encased them in 3D printed enclosures, and over the course of 2 weeks we calculated the data to send over to Environmental Science students. We also developed a web-app to showcase our journey through this process, and highlight the data we found, our project management, our sensor data, and diagrams.
Who We Are
Our names are Bailey, Cecilia, and Summer, and we are taking a Creative Technologies course called Intermediate Design Studio. During this class we got paired together for a final project, which is our Charon Sunlight Study, and we have worked together over the past 6 weeks to conduct this research study, and develop a web-app to present.
Below are pictures of us, and the roles we serve in this project.
The Start of Our Study
At the beginning of our project we had to make printed circuit boards (PCB), which would calculate the temperature, brightness, and wifi connection once deployed outside of the buildings. Each PCB calculates these three variables every 15 minutes, and uses a WiFi connection and battery to operate. We first made a breadboard prototype of the setup, function and wiring which helped us to create the PCB. We used EasyEDA to make a schematic of the boards, and then had them printed and ready to solder and use.
Below are our EasyEDA schematics, and the finished boards.
After we got the printed PCB and soldered the components together (the components included an ESP32, a light sensor, a temperature sensor, and a battery), we made 3D printed enclosures to encase them in when we deployed them on the outside of the Green Hall building. These enclosures helped to keep our boards safe from rain, and they helped to keep everything contained. We used Fusion 360, a 3D design software, to design the enclosures and then print them out.
Below are the Fusion 360 renderings of our enclosure, and the final 3D printed enclosure.
Lets Deploy Our Sensors
Once we finished putting together our PCB's and enclosures, we went over to the Green Hall building and deployed them on each side of the building. Prior to this, we had gone over to the Green Hall building and tested the spots we wanted to deploy our sensor to make sure our ESP32 had a strong connection to WiFi, and that our temperature sensors and light sensors worked correctly.
Below you will find pictures of this process prior to the actual deployment.
Once we made sure we had the correct locations to deploy our sensors, we went ahead and deployed our enclosures, and left them up for about 2 weeks to collect data. We used command strips to deploy our sensors to the building, and made sure we had a warning sign so no one would touch them.
The sensors did great during this two week period, and we frequently changed the batteries to ensure constant data collection, and our sensors also lasted through the rain. It was great to have them constantly logging data into our database and giving us accurate information to use in our stats page on the web-app.
Below are pictures of our sensors deployed and ready to collect data.
How the Data Collection Works
As previously mentioned our sensors collect values of temperature, brightness, and RSSI (WiFi connection), the data is put into a log using PHPMyAdmin. The log shows us the temperature, RSSI value, lux (brightness) value, and which one of our sensors logged the data. Each one logs data every 15 minutes, and each sensor has a different number. North is 1, East is 2, South is 3 and West is 4. Once the data is logged it gets put into our status php web-app page. On this web-app page we are able to see all of the values, the time it logged, how many logs each sensor has, and it also warns us when it has not logged so we know to change the battery.
Below are images of our state diagram showing the flow from the ESP32 to the PHPMyAdmin log, to the php stats page.
Below are images of the stats php page where our data is displayed.
This data collected also allowed us to make graphs of the temperature and brightness over the course of the 2 weeks. You can click the yellow 'results' button on our web-app to see these charts but we have also put them below.
Creating the Web-App
For the Charon Sunlight Study, we also had to develop a web-app. This web-app guides the user through our research study, and shows them everything they need to know. We worked on the web-app throughout the entirety of this project, updating and creating during each stage, and adding aesthetics to make it user friendly and eye-catching. Our web-app displays our team, our research questions, our results, our data, our process, and how we managed doing all of this in 6 weeks.
Below is a picture of our user diagram for navigating the web-app.
We also used Figma to create mockups for what we wanted our web-app to look like. The mockups go into detail about desired aesthetic, and gave us a good outline and starting point to work off of as we developed our app.
Below are images of our Figma mockups.
As we worked on our web-app we used the Figma mockups as reference for when we worked on the final pages of our web-app.
Below are pictures of our final web-app pages.
Results From the Study
During our study we aimed to answer three important questions. We asked what building got the most sunlight when comparing Green, Moon, Evans, and Cook, which are all academic buildings on campus. We also asked which side of the Green building got the most sunlight between North, South, East, and West. Lastly, we looked at the Wi-Fi and asked what the average total Wi-Fi reading was.
Below are images that show these research questions along with the graphs.
The data we collected shows that the Green Hall building gets the second most amount of sunlight in comparison to other buildings in the surrounding area. This makes sense due to the fact that Green and Moon both have the least amount of trees surrounding them, and get the most sunlight. Our research also shows that the South side of the Green building gets the most sunlight, which makes sense due to the fact that the South side has the least amount of landscaping and tree coverage. Lastly, we concluded that Green does not have the best Wi-fi due to the most common types of RSSI readings being low and good.
Some weaknesses in this study are that there could have been inconsistency with data collection as some sensors from other teams were not working properly, and our team had a sensor that lost battery due to poor Wi-fi connection, and was off at various times. It would be good in the future to collect more consistent data, especially with other teams to ensure good correlations and comparisons.
Project Management
Now you are probably wondering how we managed all of these tasks. Our team was able to develop skills in project management/SCRUM, to delegate tasks and make sure we were completing assignments on time. This helped us evenly distribute the work, work together cohesively, even when remote, and make sure our assignments were getting done before there due dates, and looking ahead to see what was coming next for us to do.
This project management helped us to build better team relationships and work together to build good team relations and cohesiveness.
Below are images of our SCRUM board so you can see our progress and everything we accomplished over the last 6 weeks.
Video Reflection
Thanks for coming!
