Design Climate - Smart Buoy

Timeline

Status: Archived

Description

Coastal Connect is a student project with the goal of developing an app that can provide ocean data to landowners and organizations based along the coast so that they can accurately see different characteristics of the water such as its temperature, the speed and acceleration of waves, visual data of the seafloor, and salinity levels, among other points of data, to better aid them in whatever they are working on. To gather this data that will be uploaded to the app, the Coastal Connect team wanted DesignHub to create a solar-powered buoy that housed a
Raspberry Pi 5 with a wireless modem for remote connectivity, controlling a temperature sensor, camera, and accelerometer. 

The main components of the design are two halves for the buoy, a rubber gasket, and acrylic plates for the electronics. The bottom half of the buoy houses most of the electronics, with the inside wall having threaded inserts for the acrylic plates to screw onto. There is a hole at the bottom for the temperature sensor to stick out of the buoy, and an acrylic lens for the camera. To keep this piece waterproof, the exterior was covered in epoxy and all other gaps were sealed with marine-certified silicone sealant. The acrylic plates were cut with a laser cutter
and the different mounting holes for the electronics were tapped to be able to screw in different standoffs, the mounting points for the electronics. The top half of the buoy had slots on the exterior for the solar panels to slide into, and these slots were dimensioned so that the solar panels could be held in by friction alone. Also, there was a hole added to the top of the part so the cables from the solar panels could connect to the power management module and battery pack on one of the acrylic plates inside the buoy. Lastly, a rubber gasket was cut using a jig to
get an accurate size of the faces between the two halves of the buoy. This gasket would be sandwiched between the two halves, and once they were fully bolted down, a watertight seal would be created.

After delivery, the team mentioned that this buoy met the needs of their project in its  current state, but if they were to continue with the project next semester, some changes would have to be made. Currently, the buoy only has a battery life of a few hours while the preferred life cycle of the buoy is about two weeks. To add more battery packs, the buoy design must be made much larger. It also needs to be printed in PETG rather than PLA so that it is more resistant to saltwater. Lastly, the acrylic lens for the camera scratches too easily so a different material should be used.

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