Just Rob | Make Sense Out of Mars
The Challenge | Make Sense Out of Mars
A Martian Wrist Watch
A Sensor-loaded wrist watch that could save your life on mars
Anyone wandering about the surface of Mars will still have to be mindful of the weather, particularly of any dust storms that may blow up.
The "Martian Wrist Watch" contains sensors for temperature, pressure, humidity and, most importantly, dust.
At the moment it is calibrated for earth conditions, but there is no reason why it can't be adapted for use on other planets with other atmospheres.
At the heart of the devices is a Heltec Microprocessor which is connected to the sensors, display and warning pixel. This monitors the incoming values, providing a stream of data which can be uploaded to servers via LoRa or MQTT networks. When in operation the watch continuously uploads readings to the cloud. It is also able to respond to command from mission control to configure the device and alert the wearer.
The watch also contains a real time clock chip so that it can display the time. Otherwise it wouldn't be a watch.
The watch uses a BME280 sensor for temperature, air pressure and humidity. An SDO11 particle sensor is used to determine levels of 10 and 25 micron dust particles. When the
Data is transferred between the watch and the network using the JSON format and the protocol in use is highly extensible to allow for new sensors and control commands.
The program code is written C++ for the Arduino platform. The controller software is written in Python.
SpaceApps is a NASA incubator innovation program.