Sorry, it took some time to reply to this. I was updating the details on my own site and forgot to update this site. Anyways, thanks for the question. The idea is to monitor the eggs and the hatchlings in situ. Since the eggs are buried in the sand, it's quite hard to monitor the hatchlings' emergence patterns, movements, behaviours, and timing. We had tried to relocate the nests in the lab and put them in clear plexiglass, but we found that the hatchlings veered off course as soon as they hatched towards the clear portion of the plexiglass. My initial project was to bury accelerometers in the egg clutch and record the exact timing of hatching during the night. This actually worked well, but that was it; the hatchlings would tunnel upwards, forcing the sensors down. 

In 2024, Booth et al strapped an accelerometer to the back of a newly emerged hatchling, buried it again, and recorded its movements. This is fine and yielded some pertinent information. The idea of the project is using radio signals (Wi-Fi, 2.4 Hz to be exact), which can pass through the sand. Wi-Fi signals are blocked by any body of water (turtle eggs, for that matter), and we can detect changes and even create a heat map using radio tomography. The sensors are cheap and we can bury them in sand. Hopefully we can get the movement recorded (via heatmap) in real time.

If you use a lower frequency radio module, you will get better penetration of water. 

There are 433 MHz options; that should get you better signal propergation. 

Hi,

Thank you for the suggestion. Basically, I had to ask my engineer first about this (@hafizfr ). Basically, yes. While it does provide better penetration, it will produce a lower-resolution image. This means the eggs would not appear in the results.

I was suggesting the 433 MHz for data transmission, rather than for radio tomography. 

Yes, for radio tomography, you will want higher frequencies; 2.4 GHz is strongly absorbed by hydrogen.

Ooo, got it. That makes sense and is actually a good idea. I'll relay this to our engineer.

We have the working prototype in lab conditions. We are currently waiting for the turtle nesting session to resume. In the lab, we tried using chicken eggs and ping pong balls (filled with water), and the system can detect the rough shape of the materials under the sand. I'll update the student thesis that our engineer supervised on the project. I can only give his email, and anybody interested can contact him for the full details. "MOHD HAFIZ FAZALUL RAHIMAN" <[email protected]>

Pictures or it didn't happen! (Sorry that's boomer talk from the past 🤣 )

More politely, if you have any pictures that visualize the rough shape of the materials under the sand then feel free to post it here. I imagine I'm not alone in thinking that's what a lot of people here would be very curious to see. Even preliminary results ❤️

I remember when the first people experiment with this sort of visualization, it was very interesting technology. Just how well that translates into practise would be very insightful.