I have been interested in setting up some things like home weather monitoring, ADS-B, streaming webcams for wildlife, etc. anyway so this would be a fun item to add to that.
Edit: also if schools were to be interested in this (which they should be, it’s very neat) they could group together and buy in bulk which would also greatly reduce the price
I run a small scale wildlife monitoring program with usually 3 cameras (depending on how many are being repaired for battery terminal corrosion). Each month I skim through and categorize ~200 videos that we've captured. Doesn't take too long, but it would be nice to automate at some point.
Edit: Also MIT did this recently: https://news.mit.edu/2023/low-cost-device-can-measure-air-po...
There are various projects out there (like plantnet) but I don’t want to burn massive personal effort curating in a system that isn’t my own first and foremost, due to inevitable enshittification. At the same time, I want others to benefit from what I do, in particular local growers and naturalists. Things like PlantNet also tend to be “majority vote” on ID, meaning a whole lot is often close, but wrong. For example there is a regional plant specific to my area called Willamette Navarretia. Those that don’t realize this will easily confuse it with very similar looking species found most elsewhere in the western US, and last I checked it wasn’t in PlantNet.
https://www.oregon.gov/oda/programs/PlantConservation/SiteAs...
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/165663-Navarretia-willamett...
Insects, animals, plants, etc get posted from all over the world for ID.
[0] https://www.inaturalist.org/
I post lots of photos of things I find locally and experts step in and help ID the subjects when I don't know what I'm seeing.
I also have a couple of AudioMoths for recording local sounds including birds, insects, etc. Very high quality units at a reasonable price.
I have seen this Mothbox posted a couple of times and almost bought one since I know I have tons of moths attracted to my native plants out here, but the price is a sticking point right now. I think something like this combined with an AudioMoth and some trail cams would be a good local wildlife monitor setup.
This may be exactly what I need: https://www.inaturalist.org/sites/network
Having talked with Sam, they're working on BioCLIPv2. So expect even better results sometime soon.
Some quick basics: It's an entirely open source system made from off-the-shelf parts made so you can build one yourself! We built it to help a set of community reforestation initiatives here in Panama! (
Existing automated insect monitors we checked out wouldn't work for us because: 1) They were REALLY BIG (like huge heavy suitcase size+) 2) They were really EXPENSIVE (like 7000-15000$ !) 3) There wasn't any info to build robust ones that could withstand months in the rainforest!
So we build one ourselves! We started with absolutely no budget, and the costs that people have noticed ($375) are really the cheapest you can find these parts (Pi5 + big battery + 64MP camera + really bright lights), and for instance are on par with the $200 just for the 16mp logitech webcam employed in many existing insect monitors!
We got about 20 of these out in the wild here in Panama already, and are literally building more in the jungle as I'm typing this!
This is the obstruction to using them in an educational setting. If they were available for $600+ each but already completely built (minimal DIY), they would be more likely to get into (some) schools.
I think I'd like to get one to track insect diversity and populations in areas where I work on riparian restoration projects. My hope is that when projects are completed, in the following years it'll be evident in the insect data the Mothbox collects. Do you think that's a valid use case? Maybe I'd need more than one to get enough data?
1. I happened on your website in Clive Thompson's newsletter, among the websites in his final "sudden death" round:
https://buttondown.com/clivethompson/archive/linkfest-25-the...
2. I thought HN peeps would find it of interest so I submitted it
Just needs motivated teachers, if you ask me. I assume the mothbox is more of a high-school project, building one seems on that level as well.
PlantNet is led by an alphabet soup consortium of French research institutes like IRD, CIRAD, INRIA, and INRA so I don’t think enshitification is inevitable - though I don’t know why it’s not open source. It’s funded by grants and donations with no incentive to enshitify it for more revenue.
Def just needs motivated teachers!
0. https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2135664&His...