A Breath of Purity

This project is a device that detects CO2 levels, Infrared radiation, Temperature , and Humidity. By putting the info through a couple of conditions, this device can find out if there's a fire.

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Inspiration

India and China are two of the world’s largest countries with one big problem: air pollution. People with asthma in these countries will have a difficult time living here because of the changing air quality. California also has had so many fires, and we wanted to build something to notify people of a fire. We developed an Arduino sensor that detects air quality, temperature, humidity and infrared radiation.

What it does

It is able to detect humidity, temperature, gases in the air, and infrared radiation. It puts information from each one of these sensors into some conditions so that it can finally determine if there is a fire or not.

How I built it

There are three sensors, the MQ-135, a gas sensor that detects ammonia nitrogen, oxygen, sulfide and smoke. The DH22 sensor detects the temperature and humidity in the air. The infrared sensor can detect any infrared radiation. The software puts the information taken in by the sensors into a couple of conditions to determine if there truly is a fire.

Challenges I ran into

We tried to incorporate a Geolocation API to find the location of our sensor; however, we did not have a crucial component that helps connect to the API, an antenna. I was going to find the exact location of the place the fire started, but the google cloud platform wasn't connecting to the Arduino because we didn't have the part we needed. I was also going to find nearby hospitals but without geo location, this wasn't possible.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

An accomplishment that I'm proud of was when I established the connection with Adafruit IO, the server where I post the data. I also figured out the hardware part which was a bit difficult due to the fact that I'm more of a software programmer than hardware.

What I learned

I learned that some API's require more work to connect to the cloud. I also learned how to use GPI pins and how to establish a connection with servers like Adafruit IO. In addition, I figured out how to take in data from each sensor through analog and digital output and input.

What's next for A Breath of Purity

The website should be able to display the location of the sensor and display what else is near that sensor such as hospitals, senior homes, and shelters. We also want to be able to check if there were any power lines near a fire or factories near the place of air pollution that could have caused or worsened the existing conditions in that place. Another update would be the capability of detecting high winds that could worsen a fire.

Built With

  • adafruit-mqtt
  • adafruit-mqtt-client
  • adafruitio
  • arduino
  • dht
  • wifi101
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