Ready to put your Tech Tutors skills into practice? WILDLABS and Freaklabs are proud to announce our new virtual course: Build Your Own Data Logger. This eight-part video tutorial series will guide wildlife and conservation researchers through building and deploying custom hardware using the Arduino platform. To join, Register now!
This course is free to all, but if you would like to build along with the course in real-time, you can purchase the WildLogger board and kit for $30 (USD) here
About the Series
If our first season of Tech Tutors inspired you to put your conservation tech skills to the test, we've got a brand-new experience coming to WILDLABS! Where can you start learning how to use Arduino to build custom devices for wildlife and conservation research? Right here!
Beginning this November, WILDLABS and Freaklabs are proud to introduce an eight-part video tutorial series that guides wildlife and conservation researchers through building and deploying custom hardware using the Arduino platform. The series will use WildLogger - an Arduino-based board that’s designed for deployment - to create a custom data logger.
Are you new to Arduino, or maybe not entirely sure what Arduino is? Good news - this series is for beginners like you! By the end of our eight modules, you'll have the practical skills and knowledge base you need to deploy your creation for real.
The series assumes no hardware experience. It’ll cover common terminology, components, the hardware design stack, setting up the Arduino environment, programming and optimising your application, choosing and modifying enclosures, piloting, testing, deploying and troubleshooting.
You’re not on your own. Our interactive series makes it easier than ever to get feedback and guidance as you learn. Every two weeks, we’ll host a live Office Hours event to troubleshoot, answer questions in person, and release the next module in the series. We'll also have cheat sheets and code to download, plus a forum to ask questions between sessions. And of course, you can build along with the course in real-time with the WildLogger board and kit, available here.
The tutorial is free and allows you to move at your own pace with videos available to all on the WILDLABS Youtube channel. To navigate through all course content, visit the Course Directory.
To join this virtual course, register here!
Group curators
Freaklabs
I'm an engineer and product designer working on wildlife conservation technology.
- 0 Resources
- 264 Discussions
- 13 Groups
Freaklabs
Develops open source technology for wildlife and conservation researchers
- 0 Resources
- 11 Discussions
- 2 Groups
- @LindyClydeKnowles
- | he/him
- 0 Resources
- 6 Discussions
- 6 Groups
- @crazybirdguy
- | Him
Just a birder
- 0 Resources
- 1 Discussions
- 12 Groups
GreenLab
- 0 Resources
- 12 Discussions
- 6 Groups
- @Paul_J_Clerkin
- | He/Him
I am a shark researcher interested in using technology to improve the way we study sharks.
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 7 Groups
- @kimgavin
- | she/her
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 9 Groups
- @carlybatist
- | she/her
Science Outreach Lead-Rainforest Connection (RFCx) & Arbimon
Ecoacoustics, biodiversity monitoring, primates, lemurs
- 65 Resources
- 241 Discussions
- 18 Groups
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 9 Groups
- @KimLane
- | She/Her
Sustainability Manager for CERES Tag LTD. An animal health company; animal monitoring, conservation, & anti-poaching/ rural crime. Wildlife, livestock, equine & companion. #CeresTrace #CeresWild #CeresRanch #SalusPet
- 2 Resources
- 17 Discussions
- 22 Groups
- @Becky_Heath
- | She/ Her
University of Cambridge & Imperial College London
Interdisciplinary scientist working in field data collection methods and tropical agriculture
- 0 Resources
- 9 Discussions
- 7 Groups
- @TaliaSpeaker
- | She/her
WILDLABS
I'm the WILDLABS Research Specialist at WWF-US
- 7 Resources
- 52 Discussions
- 24 Groups
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 4 Groups
- @ZestyResolution
- | He/Him
- 0 Resources
- 1 Discussions
- 6 Groups
Can you create an ecological data collection application on Android for Gibbon and Biodiversity Research. Check out this opportunity with us!
24 August 2023
We are recruiting a graduate student to work on a 3D groundwater flow sensor in collaboration with USGS. Experience with C/C++ or similar programming languages is preferred, but not required.
12 July 2023
Spaceborne Satellite-tag RF Systems to Measure Spatiotemporal Patterns of Wildlife
12 July 2023
Careers
Permanent and Full Time role at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
8 June 2023
As the FieldKit hardware ecosystem grows, Conservify is seeking a Junior Electrical Engineer to assist with testing, troubleshooting, prototype development, and developing production test fixtures for our growing...
9 December 2022
Article
Welcome to the eighth and final module of our Build Your Own Data Logger virtual course. We’ve built, coded and tested our data logger. Now we’re taking it into the field.
22 October 2021
Article
Welcome to the sixth module of our Build Your Own Data Logger virtual course. In these videos, we’ll discuss ways to protect devices from water, dust and animals. Then we assemble the WildLogger using cable glands so...
6 September 2021
Article
Welcome to the seventh module of our Build Your Own Data Logger virtual course. In this module, we take our fully assembled system into the lab, sandbox and pilot test environments.
6 September 2021
Welcome to the fifth module of our Build Your Own Data Logger virtual course. In these videos, we’ll optimise our data logger application, and add the finishing touches to application code so it’s ready for deployment.
25 May 2021
Article
Welcome to the fourth module of our Build Your Own Data Logger virtual course. In these videos, we'll tie everything we've learned so far together by creating our functional data logger application.
11 February 2021
Article
Welcome to the sixth and final part of Build Your Own Data Logger module 3. This new module covers interupts, PIR motion sensors and setting timers and alarms on our real time clock.
29 January 2021
Welcome to the fifth part of Build Your Own Data Logger module 3. In these videos, we'll get into the process of writing our data logger application and carrying out our proof-of-concept strategy.
22 January 2021
November 2023
event
January 2023
Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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Makes sense if you have the cash... |
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Biologging, Climate Change, Sensors, Build Your Own Data Logger Community, Emerging Tech | 6 days 4 hours ago | |
ooh very cool Salman! Amazing how much tracking devices have come down in price over the years and LoRa/LoRawan is just such a perfect fit for GPS data. Thanks heaps for sharing.... |
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Build Your Own Data Logger Community, Open Source Solutions | 2 weeks 6 days ago | |
Yes, but for our needs that are not powerful enough |
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Acoustic Monitoring, Build Your Own Data Logger Community, Camera Traps, Emerging Tech, Open Source Solutions | 6 months ago | |
Hey Tom,Since the output is dependent on a couple of factors such as the solar irradiance of the place, shading from the canopy, the type of solar panels (mono, poly or amorphous... |
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Autonomous Camera Traps for Insects, Build Your Own Data Logger Community, Camera Traps, Conservation Tech Training and Education, Sensors | 7 months 4 weeks ago | |
You can try Frank G.. He's a fantastically innovative engineer who founded and rubs the Maker's Space at Barstow College in Barstow, Calif. Frank is very familiar with... |
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Build Your Own Data Logger Community | 9 months 3 weeks ago | |
HI Wayne. Sure. The main thing is selecting and interfacing the sensors that you'd need. If you had a water meter that fed out the data, then you could just timestamp it and... |
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Build Your Own Data Logger Community | 11 months ago | |
Thanks Thomas!! We do use slow curing resins with no heat generation |
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Biologging, Build Your Own Data Logger Community | 11 months ago | |
Hi Everyone,We chose sigfox becuase it seems to have better range and is plug-play, whereas LoRa requires more custom programming and updating. Getting a gateway cost us $... |
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Biologging, Build Your Own Data Logger Community, Camera Traps, Connectivity, Emerging Tech, Sensors | 11 months 1 week ago | |
Oh, that looks so good, and some heavy hitting design firms too! |
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Biologging, Build Your Own Data Logger Community, Open Source Solutions | 11 months 2 weeks ago | |
Done lots of this over the years and it depends on the species really. If you want incubation behaviour and hence success or otherwise using temperature then the Thermocron... |
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Biologging, Sensors, Build Your Own Data Logger Community, Camera Traps | 1 year ago | |
Congratulations! You have now (hopefully!) reached the end of the Build Your Own Datalogger virtual course and have a real, working... |
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Build Your Own Data Logger Community | 1 year 11 months ago | |
Hi everyone, The final module of the course is now available: Module 8 - In the Field! We’ve built, coded and tested... |
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Build Your Own Data Logger Community | 1 year 11 months ago |
Best Temperature/ Humidity Dataloggers
24 April 2023 1:30pm
11 September 2023 2:51pm
Heya Matthew cheers for providing a comparison! We went with HOBO Pro V2s which are more expensive but have been working well so far!
23 September 2023 6:14am
Makes sense if you have the cash...
Experience with SeeedStudio T1000 as tracker and data logger.
4 September 2023 1:42pm
8 September 2023 4:37pm
ooh very cool Salman! Amazing how much tracking devices have come down in price over the years and LoRa/LoRawan is just such a perfect fit for GPS data. Thanks heaps for sharing.
All the best,
Rob
Mobile App. Developer / Gibbon Research
24 August 2023 9:59am
Funded Position Building Groundwater Flow Sensor
12 July 2023 8:39pm
Postdoc for electrical engineering at NASA
12 July 2023 12:08pm
The Wildlife Society Conference
19 June 2023 5:59am
Wildlife Monitoring Engineer
8 June 2023 4:54pm
Global shortage of Raspberry Pis - What are the alternatives
3 November 2022 10:27am
28 March 2023 9:37pm
Have you considered Arduinos?
29 March 2023 10:13am
UPDATE: The Banana Pi didnt work out for us as it was not possible to track back all the components and ensure that they were responsibly sourced. The Rock board did work for us and we were able to port our system onto this. We will be rolling out units using this over the summer. It also looks like Raspberry Pis are coming back on line and we were able to secure a bulk order for deliver mid-summer
29 March 2023 10:14am
Yes, but for our needs that are not powerful enough
Solar panels in the tropics
26 January 2023 12:28am
27 January 2023 1:23pm
Hi Tom,
I'm with Akiba, you have to test. A collaborator has deployed solar-augmented kit in secondary jungle and some of them got enough light, and others didn't, so it can work. The open circuit voltage of solar panels doesn't change a whole lot in dim light, but the current drops drastically. So you would choose an oversize panel of the same voltage (or a bit higher).
Thanks
27 January 2023 3:56pm
I've been intrigued by this topic. Thinking about ways you could use drones or some kind of launcher to deploy panels above the canopy. Sadly I live in the great white north so I have no way of testing any concepts. Maybe even some kind of solar balloon that could float above the canopy. Interesting design problem.
30 January 2023 10:10am
Hey Tom,
Since the output is dependent on a couple of factors such as the solar irradiance of the place, shading from the canopy, the type of solar panels (mono, poly or amorphous) and orientation of the panels, etc, I'd suggest you use a software to simulate the different parameters to get an almost accurate estimation of the output. You can try PVsyst- it has a free month trial (I haven't used it before but I hear it's great) or any other PV software :)
Junior Electrical Engineer (Hardware)
9 December 2022 5:04pm
Looking for Electronic Design Consultancy in California
26 November 2022 3:35pm
28 November 2022 9:52am
Hi, Synapse is a good option if you're looking for professionalism & speed, they're in San Francisco (and Seattle). It's a sister company to the one I work for in the UK so I could put you in touch with the right people if you're interested.
2 December 2022 7:31pm
You can try Frank G.. He's a fantastically innovative engineer who founded and rubs the Maker's Space at Barstow College in Barstow, Calif. Frank is very familiar with complexities, needs, and budgets of field-based conservation. His email address is: [email protected].
Build Your Own Data Logger
24 October 2022 2:40pm
24 October 2022 3:06pm
HI Wayne.
Sure. The main thing is selecting and interfacing the sensors that you'd need. If you had a water meter that fed out the data, then you could just timestamp it and log it to the microSD card. Otherwise, for the data you're looking for, it's likely you'd need a water flow sensor and water pressure sensor. Flow would let you know the rate of water flow in a pipe, ie: usage. Pressure would allow you to detect if a leak occurs (slight decrease in average water pressure over time) or burst (sudden large decrease in water pressure).
At the moment, we're not actively selling the WildLogger since the chip shortage made inventory more precious. But if you email, we can arrange one if you were curious to try the course.
Akiba
Water leakage in aquatic tags at deeper depths
12 October 2022 12:37pm
20 October 2022 11:41am
Thanks a lot Alasdair, this is great. We will take this into consideration for our next testing phase.
Best
Hari
21 October 2022 4:12pm
I'll add - avoid fast curing resins/epoxies for, at least, two reasons:
1. The exothermic reaction between the two compounds can cause sensor issues (ie: heat).
2. Air bubbles will form (and cure) more easily in fast curing compounds.
23 October 2022 2:51pm
Thanks Thomas!! We do use slow curing resins with no heat generation
Rainforest SigFox available for use
26 August 2022 6:09pm
26 September 2022 10:20pm
Hi Roland,
This is really amazing, great to hear about your set-up! I'm just wondering what the overall cost was to set up this system? Just thinking in terms of setting up something similar in other parks and what they should expect with regard to price. Would also be great to hear about the overall effort, e.g., hours/team members required. It would be great to have this act as a blueprint for other organizations/research stations wishing to deploy a similar system within their respective national parks/areas/etc.!
10 October 2022 8:33am
Hi Rolland,
Interested too, but why did you choose SigFox (a private network) rather than LoRa (open network)?
Sigfox currently has some financial troubles that, don't know what it will become in the long term.
18 October 2022 11:55am
Hi Everyone,
We chose sigfox becuase it seems to have better range and is plug-play, whereas LoRa requires more custom programming and updating. Getting a gateway cost us $2000 for a year's lease + deposit. We covered solar power. There are also some 'minigateways' you can purchase but I don't know how they compare in range (plan to test). So far we are happy with the performance, in that it has worked consistency with no outages (once we stabilized the power supply). I think the annual costs are about $10 per tag. We are working on a paper that will describe this in more detail. So far just using for tracking tags but also looking at a trap sensor.
cheers
Roland
Open-source Argos satellite tag for bears - available now
7 October 2022 4:49pm
9 October 2022 5:14am
Oh, that looks so good, and some heavy hitting design firms too!
Frontiers Symposium: Digital tools for reversing environmental degradation
5 October 2022 10:23am
Avian nest box monitoring
14 September 2022 2:30pm
14 September 2022 3:08pm
Maybe this is a starting point. Any idea if this product would work inside the box. Kestrel DROP D3 Wireless Temperature, Humidity & Pressure Data Logger https://amzn.eu/d/5VdQwtA
23 September 2022 12:34pm
I'd be interested in any camera monitoring setups that can be used inside a nest box. Most camera traps are too bulky for this purpose. All the devices I've looked at either need a wired connection or a wifi network to transmit images. I want one that can store all info to an SD card and preferably be solar powered. Obviously infrared or starlight sensitivity. Sound recording would be a bonus for some bird monitoring I want to do.
23 September 2022 1:16pm
Done lots of this over the years and it depends on the species really. If you want incubation behaviour and hence success or otherwise using temperature then the Thermocron IButton DS1921G is perfect. The new Blue Maestro is an option I became aware of this year but I haven't tested at scale.
In terms of cameras and endoscopes I've tailored many off the shelf products and built a few from scratch. When I get chance I'll have a look around and see what is still available.
How To Use An Arduino – Beginners Guide
1 September 2022 10:02pm
For anyone interested in WILDLABS' Build Your Own Data Logger course, this beginner's guide to Arduino may be a valuable resource! This page also includes links to other relevant resources on Arduino language and getting started with Arduino software for the first time.
Take the Build Your Own Data Logger Survey: End of Course Feedback
22 October 2021 11:47am
Module 8: In the Field
22 October 2021 11:38am
Module 8: In the Field

22 October 2021 12:00am
Module 7: Testing and Piloting
17 September 2021 11:04am
Module 6: Ruggedising Devices
6 September 2021 12:39pm
Module 6: Ruggedising Devices

6 September 2021 12:00am
Module 7: Testing and Piloting

6 September 2021 12:00am
Module 5: Optimising your application
25 May 2021 12:00pm
26 May 2021 10:13am
Hurray !, we were waiting impatiently for it, now we can put our babys to sleep and let them only work what is necessary!
I've started to see a bit of the content, and as always, it's exceeding my expectations.
Congratulations on your excellent work!
1 June 2021 8:25am
Thanks a lot for the new module!
It now keeps logging and logging and logging....
Greetings from Austria,
Robin
1 June 2021 1:47pm
Glad to hear it's working! We're now working on the last couple modules which is more mechanical and assembly. Hoping to get those out soon. We're feeling a bit of pandemic fatigue so progress is slower than usual. Ha ha ha.
Akiba
Module 5: Optimising Your Application

25 May 2021 12:00am
Wildlogger for freshwater monitoring
15 April 2021 2:00am
15 April 2021 10:34am
Hi Nigel.
At the moment, I don't know of any other groups doing water monitoring. @JAL is doing a cave monitoring project. The DS18B20 is a nice sensor. It was the original sensor I was going to use for the Wildlogger kit before switching to the DHT11. One thing is that you may need to test how waterproof it actually is. When I took them apart, there was just a heat shrink tubing seal to the DS18B20 with exposed pins inside the stainless steel tube.
I haven't had the chance to play with a DO sensor yet, but definitely hoping for more info once you deploy. It sounds like a fascinating project.
Akiba
17 April 2021 2:46am
Hi Nigel,
Are you interested in attended or unattended monitoring? You can take inspiration from openctd, also the cave pearl project which has a few variants. IMO the atlas instruments are probably the safest way to go. Water quality sensors are frightfully expensive, and even Atlas sensors are spendy in my book.
I heard there was a chap calibrating DS18B20 units (NIST traceable) for USD20 or so, that would partially remove the accuracy issue (the 18B20 is accurate to 0.5degC only). The 18B20 can come already waterproofed which is convenient.
BLE connection problems
5 April 2021 7:12am
10 April 2021 7:47am
Hi Jose.
I somehow missed this post. I can't fully understand the issue you're running into. Can you post the code you're using? Also if you can, perhaps a rough diagram of how you're interfacing the BLE HM-10 to the Wildlogger? It sounds like you somehow have it connected to the USB dongle interface? And then the other side of the Bluetooth connection is connected to the PC? It sounds like an interesting application.
Thanks.
Akiba
13 April 2021 6:43am
Hi Akiba,
It seems to me that I have not explained myself well, as it is a somewhat special topic, if you think I will answer you in private. These days I'm a bit busy, but I hope I can answer you soon
Best regards,
13 April 2021 7:43am
Hi JAL.
No problem. Feel free to email directly or private message through Wildlabs on the specifics. No rush either. I think it's interesting that there seems to be interest in adding a BLE interface to the system. It's the second time hearing about it :)
Akiba
Mid Course Check-In
24 February 2021 4:55am
6 April 2021 12:14am
Hi Egil.
I think we're seeing the benefits of dropping the whole series binge watch style versus trickling them out on a schedule. I think we all learned a lot on how to manage a workshop series like this. Ha ha ha. Future ones will be more compact and released as a set. That said, this first one is important because it sets the foundation of concepts that future series will build on. Almost all conservation technology revolves around data collection in some form so the data logger concepts will keep on popping up in more sophisticated devices as well, but with fancier bells and whistles :)
Akiba
7 April 2021 6:36pm
I think this whole series is a very valuable tool and will open up a vast amount of possibilities for people to collect data for their projects, so useful to have such a workshop here all in one place.
8 April 2021 2:28am
Thanks! We think it will be useful, especially if it can serve as a building block for courses with more sophisticated devices. I think it will be really interesting to see where this goes and what comes kinds of devices and projects come out of it.
Akiba
11 September 2023 2:49pm
Heya Nick - ooh cool! We thought about the Kestrels but I had heard about some of the problems with them maxing out at 100. Have gone for HOBO Pro V2s