As anyone who has ever done lab work will know, it always takes longer than you expect! Well that’s definitely the case with my sensor calibration experiments. We have got there eventually though and the calibration is happening this week. So while all of the delays were happening there I decided to get a webpage sorted that I can use as a live data feed for the sensors and also somewhere to download the data. Version 1 of my webpage can be found here. It definitely needs a bit more work but it currently shows data from the last three days and will soon have a way of downloading the data directly.

Whilst we’re in the calibration stage the data might look a little strange but I’ll be putting updates on the webpage regularly and will blog when the sensor is installed in the school and is collecting data. In the next few weeks I’m planning to visit the school that I am working with to decide on a deployment location with the pupils. Both the school and I want the pupils involved in the science as much as possible and so they will be helping me to pick the best location for the sensor, to install the sensor, to take measurements and then to analyse it. We’re hoping that this level of involvement will not only help to keep the pupils engaged but will also teach them what it’s like to be real scientists.

The second facet to my work is the general public engagement aspect. I’m hoping to engage with members of the public who live or work close to the monitoring site to make them aware of the air that they breathe. This will probably start with the parents of the pupils involved in the project but will hopefully expand from there.

I’ve definitely reached an exciting point in my project now so watch out for updates…