The Open CTD Project – Southern Fried Science

The Ocean belongs to everyone. Shouldn’t we all have access to the tools needed to study it?

August 12, 2013October 27, 2013 Andrew Thaler

Oceanography for Everyone – The OpenCTD I believe that scientific research should have as few barriers to participation as possible. I believe that not only should the results of scientific research be freely available to the public, but that the tools–software, hardware, and expertise–of science should be made as accessible as possible. In many cases, … Read More “The Ocean belongs to everyone. Shouldn’t we all have access to the tools needed to study it?” »

OpenCTD first soak test

June 10, 2013October 27, 2013 Andrew Thaler 3 Comments

The Open CTD Project

Two weeks ago, we launched Oceanography for Everyone–The OpenCTD, a crowdfunding project to develop a low-cost, open-source CTD. After a few days hunting around for the best sealants, I put the prototype (name pending, suggestions welcome) through its first soak test. The results were… mixed. I left the CTD soaking for 12 hours (with hardware removed) … Read More “OpenCTD first soak test” »

What can we do with an OpenCTD – high resolution hurricane monitoring

June 3, 2013October 27, 2013 Andrew Thaler

The Open CTD Project

Last Friday we launched Oceanography for Everyone–The OpenCTD, a crowdfunding project to develop a low-cost, open-source CTD. This project won’t succeed without your help. To demonstrate how valuable a device like the OpenCTD is, for the next several weeks I’ll be presenting various projects that could be accomplished with access to low-cost CTD’s. First up … Read More “What can we do with an OpenCTD – high resolution hurricane monitoring” »

Oceanography for Everyone – Help us build a CTD!

May 31, 2013October 27, 2013 Andrew Thaler 1 Comment

Science, The Open CTD Project

Head over to our Rockethub Page for more information! Conductivity, temperature, and depth (CTD). With these three measurements, marine scientists can unlock ocean patterns hidden beneath the waves. The ocean is not uniform, it its filled with swirling eddies, temperature boundaries, layers of high and low salinity, changing densities, and many other physical characteristics. To … Read More “Oceanography for Everyone – Help us build a CTD!” »

Arduino Project Log: Building the Sea Leveler Part 1 – Hardware

April 13, 2013April 13, 2013 Andrew Thaler

The Open CTD Project

Two weeks ago, I announced my latest Hacking the Ocean project, an open-source, Arduino-powered water level meter that monitors the frequency of tweets containing the hashtag #sealevelrise. Since launch, the Sea Leveler has had some bugs and received some good press. Now that I’ve had some time to monitor its performance and work the bugs out of its code, it is finally time for the promised “how to build the Sea Leveler” post.

This project was much more involved than my Arduino build and significantly more rewarding. The Sea Leveler was a challenge on multiple fronts, from learning to make the Arduino talk to twitter to physically modifying the water level meter. As I noted in my first project log, I have very little programming experience, and the major goal of this build was to level up my C++ skills. I’m very happy with the results, both technical and aesthetic.

For simplicity, I’m going to break this into two posts, one for hardware and one for software.

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Arduino Project Log: Getting Started with a Digital Compass

January 7, 2013January 10, 2013 Andrew Thaler 2 Comments

The Open CTD Project

As I mentioned during the last Blue Pints episode, this year I’m going to be attempting to build a low-cost open source CTD for basic oceanographic measurements. This is in addition to my ongoing work with the OpenROV. I have a pretty solid electronics background, but in order to accomplish this goal, I also need to learn how to program microcontrollers, something that I’ve never done before. For the next several months I’m going to tackle various small Arduino project to get comfortable with the fundamentals. I’ll be working out of Environmental Monitoring with Arduino: Building Simple Devices to Collect Data About the World Around Us and Arduino Projects to Save the World, both of which feature beginner to advanced projects based around environmental monitoring and data collection, as well as Programming Arduino Getting Started with Sketches for as a basic programming primer.

For my first project, I wanted to start with something that could eventually be implemented with the OpenROV–a magnetometer to provide compass headings while navigating the robot. As a first step, I wanted to learn how to program the Arduino board to calculate compass headings from a magnetometer and develop some sort of rough visual readout of that heading.

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