H2S-Dev Board Contest - Project Idea

Problem

My city is crossed by several rivers that have become increasingly polluted due to urbanization, poor sewage infrastructure, and industrial waste. Unfortunately, most of this environmental degradation goes unnoticed because there’s no accessible, real-time water quality data available to the public.

Solution

I’m building a portable, open-source device to monitor and map the water quality of the rivers in my city. The device will be handheld, battery-powered, and use off-the-shelf sensors to measure water parameters like:

• pH
• Turbidity
• Electrical Conductivity
• Temperature

It will also log:

• GPS location (GNSS)
• Timestamp

I will manually visit ~20 different points across multiple rivers and take readings. Instead of relying on the Helium Network (which isn’t available where I live), the device will store data locally (e.g., on an SD card). Later, the I will transfer the data to a computer for visualization and create an interactive map of river pollution hotspots.

Goals

• Build a handheld water quality logging device using the H2S-Dev board.
• Collect data from 20+ river points across the city.
• Record GPS location, time, and water quality measurements at each point.
• Use the data to generate an interactive water quality heatmap.
• Raise awareness about urban water pollution through open data and DIY tech.

Expected Results

• A working portable water quality logger with GPS tagging.
• A dataset of water pollution levels across the city.
• A visual map showing cleaner vs. more polluted regions.
• A public GitHub repository with open-source code and documentation.
• A project post on Elecrow, Hackster, Instructables, as well as a YouTube video.