A group of young and capable people from Sarajevo made the first distributed sensor network for measuring air pollution. The sensors were programmed and set on balconies in their homes. Behind this project, as the young Sarajevo citizens say, there is a few years of work and a lot of sleepless nights.
Thanks to their efforts, today all residents of Sarajevo can track air pollution live on the CityOS map, which refreshes every 60 seconds. As explained by young people, the sensors which were set up are laser and they measure three different levels of pollution: PM1, PM2.5 and PM10 from which PM1 and PM2.5 are the most harmful. Pollution levels PM1 and PM2.5 have never been measured in Sarajevo before.
According to current measurements, air quality on Grbavica, Vogosca and Hotonj is extremely unhealthy, while large pollution has been recorded in Alipasino Polje, Ilidza, Reljevo, Lukavica and near Pionirska Dolina.
This youth project has so far been supported by the BH Futures Foundation, Authority Partners, Energoinvest, Symphony and many individuals by buying parts from eBay, and also Burch University and Blum Laba. In this way, they provided their space for free training that were attended by more than two hundred young people from Sarajevo. After training, young people have set up devices and placed them on their balconies in their desire to help their city and its citizens.
The initiative for launching this sensor was supported by young engineers from San Francisco, Barcelona and London. They have put in their knowledge and enabled this device that costs 1.000 times less than old official devices that only measure PM10. The complete design of the device, hardware and software code are free and open all over the world.
This project is already expanding to other cities in the world, and in our country, Tuzla citizens show the most interest in setting up a sensor for measuring air pollution. The first free trainings have already been held in Tuzla, and youngs started to install the devices on their balconies.
The group of Sarajevo youngs invites all of those who want to join their action and support them. CityOS app for iOS or Android devices can be downloaded from online stores.
You can find more information about the project CityOS here.
(Source: klix.ba)
