When You Really Want to Get to the Bottom of the Ocean #WearableWednesday #wearabletech #science #ocean
This research project may rank in my top ten for wearables for the year, just because the target wearer is sea life. Spotted on TechCrunch, this marine skin is being developed by a team at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia in collaboration with the Red Sea Research Center. The Center has a strong interest in the Red Sea’s coral reefs as they represent one of the top three reefs in the world. So, animal tagging is an important component for collecting data, but the process is often invasive and/or clumsy. The hope for this project is that these new skins will be comfortable for the creatures, which may include whales, sharks and crabs.
The marine skin uses a flexible silicone substrate and a design that can survive being twisted, torqued and put under serious pressure at up to moderate depth. It tracks the salinity and temperature of the water and distance below the surface; this could be used to track either the creature’s own preferences or to monitor the waters in which it swims or crawls.
Another big advantage of this tracker is that it is inexpensive, coming in around $12 per unit. So far the unit is using Bluetooth, which limits the range, but hopefully a solution will be found that will be good for battery life and communication. Of course the real question is whether the world’s reefs can be saved since they are key to so much life.
Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!