Students keep their eyes on New Zealand's water quality

29 Mar 2017 - 10:43:45 in Achievement
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A water quality testing device created by third-year Engineering students will be developed for a wider audience after winning a World Wildlife Fund Conservation Innovation Award.

The River Watch Water Testing Device, which provides users with real-time data about the health of their waterways, was developed by students Matthew Hammond-Blain and Aidan Bennett-Reilly in one of their Engineering classes.

The pair began with two water-testing prototypes developed by previous students, and integrated the best of both into one watertight, user-friendly, higher quality device. They also worked alongside fellow team members who created an integrated Android app that can remotely read the data gathered by the device.

Dr James Quilty, a Senior Lecturer in the School of Engineering and Computer Science, says both the device and the app are open-source and freely available to the public.

“It’s out there if people around the world want to build on this device. They can take the schematics and source code and make improvements, providing they honour the agreement to return the improvements back to the community.

“It really is citizen science.”

The device was created in collaboration with grassroots citizen science organisation Water Action Initiative New Zealand (WaiNZ), which has worked alongside Victoria Engineering students for five years.

WaiNZ will use the $25,000 WWF prize money to develop the device into something that can be used on a wider scale—both within New Zealand, and around the world.

More information is available at www.wainz.org.nz

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