ORB is an Open Research Buoy for Scientists and Artists
Open Buoy is a modular, open source vessel which serves as a freely accessible, experimental platform for Scientists and Artists to host their technology to monitor and sense water systems, on bayous, rivers, lakes or the ocean. The vessel is an open hardware design, built low cost, using hacked consumer electronics to replace otherwise expensive research instruments. It is collaboratively developed and aims to implement the users eventual research interests, for example coastal documentation, water quality analysis, or accustic recording, to name a few. By developing it incrementally and reacting to site specific requirements, the buoy shall grow naturally and help to learn and discover different topics and potential applications of such a floating platform in particular areas.
In the United States the bulk of the deployment of the project and testing has taken place along the Mississippi River and delta:
Here’s a fun video from 2014 showing the ORB being constructed during a hackathon in Dublin, Ireland, and some of the ORB’s initial testing, with additional footage of improvements and testing in Berlin and the New Orleans bayou:
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