Completed this project on Saturday, March 28th, 2020 but it took my spare time this week to write the README.md for the project and this blog. This post tells the story of one example of how I am making productive use of my time sheltering-in-place; how I am leveraging the time to tackle todo tasks, how I am leveraging the time to educate, how I am leveraging the time to spend quality family time and how I am doing it with passion and excitement.
Note: Be sure to scroll down to see my live basement air quality index stream.
While I am social distancing and sheltering-in-place, I am taking the opportunity to tackle some of the questions of inquiring minds. One such question comes from my wife: “Is the air quality in the basement safe?”
This weekend Eden (my daughter) and I tackled researching air quality metrics, and then we build our very own air quality monitor.
Before we get into output and the build details, you should understand the two measurements that matter, PM2.5, and PM10. PM2.5 refers to atmospheric particulate matter (PM) that have a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers, which is about 3% the diameter of a human hair. PM10 is particulate matter 10 micrometers or less in diameter.
The chart above helped us build the logic to determine if the air quality was good or poor, to color code air quality status based on the PM2.5 and PM10 readings, set thresholds, and trigger alerts; the following infographic helped us understand what the metrics above meant.
Initial State live air quality index feed from my basement
[iframe src=”https://iot.app.initialstate.com/embed/#/tiles/bkt_g5xpp7k8db9uvt” width=”100%” height=”730″]
adafruit.io live air quality index feed dashboard
The above was built using a Raspberry Pi and a WINGONEER PM Sensor.
This was a great project because it answered a question, it became the prototype for air sensors built and placed strategically throughout my home, and more importantly because I got to spend time with my daughter Eden, sharing my love for technology and getting her excited to build something and see the results of her focus and effort.
AQI Project Code
This weekend’s project is an online shopping/delivery service scraper using scrapy to alert via Pushover when a grocery delivery slot becomes available.