More cool things surrounding the Mothbox project keep happening! Here’s a recap of cool developments over the past month!
New Teammate! Bri Johns wins Fulbright with Dinalab!
GOSH’s fantastic community manager, Bri Johns!, just won a fulbright fellowship to work in Panama with Dinalab 2024/2025!
Her stated mission is
“To research the socio-environmental impacts of an open source and low-cost insect monitor (the Mothbox) that researchers and local community farmers are developing in Panama.”
and we are looking forward to serving as a fulbright host institution and developing and holding workshops with her and the awesome reforestation group Pro-Eco Azuero!
meeting hubert bri.PNG1919×885 105 KB
Remote and On Location Work
While the Dinalab crew is scattered around the earth, Andy is doing some remote software development and bug fixes, while Kitty in Panama is running the mothbox through a series of tests to find what will eventually break or malfunction deeper in the field. Hubert is testing some around panama (like one on BCI pictured below!) , and he’s getting ready to head to Peru and test the Mothbox out there!
WhatsApp Image 2024-04-04 at 8.10.00 PM1200×1600 85.9 KB
(Here’s an image logging into a Dinalab Laptop from Chicago that is then VNC-ing into a jungle raspberry pi )
PXL_20240411_1719517171920×1446 251 KB
Here’s kitty putting the mothbox through its paces in Panama
signal-2024-04-14-130732_0362048×1536 370 KB
Here’s an example analog user sheet the field techs will use with the Mothboxes
Some cool things we have already fixed or improved
Enabled HDR photo taking
The mothbox can now take bracketed photos to compensate for areas in a photo of potentially different lighting as well as moths that may be shinier or darker than others!
WhatsApp Image 2024-03-28 at 11.32.40 PM903×596 129 KB
Pi5 compatibility
the mothbox currently uses Pi4s plus a pitjuice hat that let it turn off and wake itself up automatically.The new Pi5 has a built in clock that lets it do similar work without the expensive 75-100$ pijuice addition! We did some base tests with it and not only does it totally work to schedule itself, we can also take slightly better and quicker photos!
Solar Charging
one of our favorite design changes was adding an external adapter for charging without going into the box which can also be used to ADD EXTRA BATTERIES or a SOLAR PANEL!
Wifi hotspotting
debuggin a field device can be trickier, especially if you need to connect to it via wifi and there’s no wifi to be found. We found a cool script we adapted for the mothbox that lets it automatically create its own wifi that field techs can connect to!
Raspberry Connect - Automated Switching - Access Point or WiFi Network
Activate an easy Automated WiFi AccessPoint or connect to a local WiFi Network for Raspberry Pi OS Bookworm. The AP is automatically created when you are out.
WhatsApp Image 2024-04-14 at 11.23.01 AM1600×1204 226 KB
Better Backuping scripts
We found a linux problem on the RPIs with some mothboxes where external drives might not unmount themselves, and cause photos to not be recorded on new drives. But the latest backupping script double checks all this, and has been working good for us!
and get all our open source files on our github
https://github.com/Digital-Naturalism-Laboratories/Mothbox