Category: Student science

Arba Minch Water Technology Institute (AWTI) hosted the 22nd International Symposium on Sustainable Water Resources Development (June 14-15 2024). Together with four colleagues (Awel Haji, Demiso Daba, Edmealem Temesgen and Israel Gebresilasie), I organized table displays under the title ‘Do it yourself – Do it low-cost’.

We could present low-cost sensor systems: the air pollution sensor, a soil moisture sensor system, and a water level sensor system. Materials were available for participants to try to make their own relative humidity and temperature sensor. Work of awtiCode (Python code development by and for AWTI staff) was presented as well.

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For the symposium, we also created a poster presentation on the PM2.5 low-cost sensor system.

Together with colleagues from various departments, I have created a proposal for establishing a low-cost measurement network with low-cost sensors and student science.

Over the past five years I have developed and tested a low-cost PM2.5 sensor system. I have used multiple courses to conduct research with students. Presumably, those two combined could result in a low-cost measurement network: sensor systems built and maintained by students, and data collected, validated, analyzed and interpreted by students as well. For this, I have joined hands with two colleagues from Environmental Health (Asmare Asrat and Awugchew Teshome), Geography and Environmental Sciences (Alemu Assele), Electrical and Computer Engineering (Afework Tademe), Meteorology and Hydrology (Israel Gebresilassie) and Water Supply and Environmental Engineering (Dagmawi Mateos and me). As staff, we will offer courses within our respective departments for which part of the content can be used to conduct tasks for the measurement network. For example, students of Electrical and Computer Engineering covering part of the course Microcomputer and interface by building the sensor systems. Or, Geography students covering part of a GIS course by spatially visualizing measurement network data.

The proposal is submitted as a thematic research to the Water Resources Research Center, and accepted on April 29 2024. Since budget is limited, we have submitted this proposal with a zero-budget: materials will be covered by my lab, while all labor will be done either by the students, or the staff offering those courses and supervising the students. Over the coming year we will find out whether the assumption (running a measurement network low-cost with low-cost sensors and student science is possible) is true or not.

See the presentation slides used during the proposal defense:

Across two meetings, I met with institute and university staff and management to raise awareness for low-cost research opportunities. Over the past five years, both developing low-cost sensor systems and conducting research with students (student science) has given me access to many hours of data and some publications at little cost in the field of air pollution. I strongly believe that the same can be conducted in other fields.

At April 5, 2024, the meeting participants included lecturers and deans of the Arba Minch Water Technology Institute, as well as its scientific director (Dr. Bogale Gebremariam). With Dr. Tesfaye Habtemariam (Executive Director for Research of Arba Minch University) also joining us, we could have a fruitful discussion on opportunities and challenges with all layers of the university. This meeting was followed up with a meeting on April 11, 2024, where the university president (Dr. Damtew Darza), vice president of academics (Dr. Alemayehu Chufamo) and vice president of research (Behailu Merdekios) participated. Some of my students were present to show the instruments with which they conducted measurements. The locally developed soil-moisture sensor system was also on display.

The meetings raised awareness for low-cost research opportunities and integrating research with education. Below slides show the presentation and minutes of the challenges and solutions raised across the two meetings.

The Ethiopian Journal of Water Science and Technology (EJWST) has published an article by me and my students titled “Roadside PM2.5 concentrations measured with low-cost sensors and student science in Arba Minch, Ethiopia“. During April and May 2022, students of Water Supply and Environmental Engineering, year 3, conducted PM2.5 measurements at road-side locations. They did so with the locally assembled sensor system, as part of the course Air and Noise pollution. In this way, seven groups of 5-6 students collected approximately 2,500 hours of PM2.5 data. After the course, I analyzed the data and turned it into a manuscript. Two of the students (Mekdes Dawit and Tewodros Zerihun) provided valuable feedback and became co-authors to the article.

Measurements were conducted at six locations: one at the university campus gate, two at busy squares, one at the bus station, and two inside public transport tuktuks (bajaj). Except for the campus gate, at all locations concentrations exceeded WHO guideline values. Highest concentrations were observed during the morning period at the bus station. Supporting data and data processing code is shared on an OSF repository.

Low-cost sensors and student science

The article is a showcase of the application of both locally assembled low-cost sensors and student science. Combined, these methods provided me with a lot of data for very little costs. At the same time it provided my students with practical experience as part of a course. During the course Air and Noise pollution, they got lectures on the course contents. They had to apply this knowledge by selecting a specific research question, constructing measurement plans, installing and operating the instruments, processing the data in Microsoft Excel, and writing a report.

Lund university (Sweden), Haramaya University, Institutes of Geophysics, Space Science and Astronomy of Addis Ababa University, and the Department of Physics of North Carolina A&T State University co-organized the international conference ‘Together for cleaner air in Ethiopia’ (18-20 December 2023). I was offered the opportunity to give two presentations about the work at Arba Minch University: locally developing the low-cost sensor system, and conducting research with students (student science).

Slides of the low-cost sensor system presentation:

Slides of the student science presentation:

Research budget in Ethiopia is extremely limited, and many of my colleagues are not involved in research due to that. The Water Resources Research Centre organized a seminar on conducting low-cost research at December 4, 2023. I presented from own experience on ‘How to collect +25,000 hours of data and create five scientific articles with almost no budget’. This included sharing my work on low-cost sensor development and conducting research with students. After presenting my experiences, we had an interactive session with the twenty attendants on what opportunities and challenges there are for low-cost research.

I presented my work on low-cost research methods at the 21st International Symposium on Sustainable Water Resources Development (June 9-10, 2023). This symposium is organized by my institute (Arba Minch Water Technology Institute) and the Water Resources Research Center (WRRC).

Arba Minch University faced budget cuts, which reduces opportunities for local staff to conduct research. Reducing research costs expands research opportunities at this time, because many staff members are idle. Therefore, my focus on low cost research by using Do-It-Yourself (DIY) measurement setups and students as data collectors (student science) caught the attention of the research director of the WRRC. He invited me to present about these two cost-saving methods on the symposium. See here the slides of the presentation.

Apart from presenting, I could display different instruments on tables. I showed all components that go into the low-cost PM2.5 sensor system. Participants could try to register the highest CO2 concentration by blowing into an CO2 measurement instrument. Also, the recently launched awtiCode was on display, and participants could leave suggestions and questions for Python code.

Table presentation

LCS parts

CO2 competition

awtiCode