Greg Volynsky
Aqua Monitoring System: MEchatronics research Labratory
Mechatronics Research Lab did not exist when I began my freshmen year. The summer between eighth grade and
high school, I had an idea to make a pen which writes with the material which sticky hands are made from.
After consulting with a family-friend chemist and engineer, I had made a couple of sketches of what the pen
would look like. The next step was to build a prototype.
Every morning, I got to school about 30 minutes before homeroom, which I mostly spent in the Commons- the
BCA version of a library. On one particular morning, I spoke with a couple of fellow students in the engineering
academy, who told me that the most helpful engineering teacher was Mr. Nodarse. By pure chance, he
happened to be that day's supervisor in the Commons.
I just walked up to him, with a binder full of drawing of the pen in my hands. I explained to him exactly what
I envisioned, and, over the next couple of weeks, he helped me to develop the idea. Sadly, when testing the
material used in sticky hands to find its melting point, we found that it released toxic gas. We almost set off a
fire alarm during that testing session, too.
Despite this setback, I still spent most of my free time in Mr. Nodarse's lab. Soon, I came up with the idea of making an attachable system for monitoring water quality which is to be attached externally to a ship. Over the next two years, I worked tirelessly to make the Aqua Monitoring System (AMS) a reality.
My teacher and mentor, Mr. Nodarse, worked closely with me, and was convinced that an engineering research program would benefit our school greatly. He started the program one year after we began working together, and I was the first to enroll. This year, the second year of the program running, it has had twice as many applicants as he could take.
THe Story
Aqua monitoring system
The Aqua Monitoring System has gone through two main designs. The first design required it to be attached to the hull of a boat. With this design, a complete prototype was built, and it was used to compete in the North Jersey Regional Science Fair (NJRSF), New Jersey Academies of Science (NJAS), and Stockholm Junior Water Prize. At NJRSF, the AMS won 7 awards, the most of any project at the science fair. These awards included the Water Environment Foundation award, Jr. Div; ASU Walton Sustainability Award, Jr. Div, cash award; Rutgers Student Award; NOAA Pulse of the Planet Award; Meteorology Award, Jr. Division; Special Computing Award: Third Place, cash award; and the NJIT Summer Research Academy First Alternate award. At NJAS, the AMS won first place in its section and was admitted the AAAS national convention. When submitted to the Stockholm competition, the AMS was runner-up in the State of New Jersey.
Here, you can find the 12-page document submitted to the Stockholm Junior Water Prize competition, called Development and Evaluation of a Novel Water Monitoring System. To access it, click here:
After a year of working with the original design of the AMS, I decided to build a new prototype which could actually be tested in the water. This time, I made it easily detachable and attachable to a ship. So far this year, I have submitted a written report about the AMS to the DuPont challenge and am planning on attending the AAAS national convention with this project. I am currently working on building and testing this prototype.
Here, you can find the document submitted to the DuPont challenge, properly titled 'Making a Splash in Water Quality Monitoring':
Short summary of the benefits of the ams
Currently, in order to monitor water quality, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) utilizes a system of buoys with an elaborate network of sensors. The buoys are divided into two main categories: mooring and drifting. Drifting buoys last an average of 400 days before either its batteries die or it runs aground [4]. Their location cannot be controlled, as they travel with the current. Mooring buoys are up to 12 meters high and require a counterweight to remain in place [2]. In addition to their extensive cost, the buoys also cost a large amount of money to maintain. In order to fix a buoy, a boat is necessary to bring an engineer to the location of the buoy.
Rather than being discharged independently into the water, the Aqua Monitoring System (AMS) is attached to a ship, with a variety of sensors submerged underwater; the AMS measures and records water quality data as the ship is moving. The AMS sends data to a computer onboard, and a turbine inside the AMS provides the system with power. As the AMS is significantly simpler than stationary buoys, the AMS requires a fraction of the cost to make and maintain. The Aqua Monitoring System is a simple and elegant solution to a multitude of problems, including tracking water contain during emergencies, prophylactic monitoring of water quality, and water research.
Disasters which devastate marine life occur at an alarming frequency. In 2010, the largest accidental oil spill devastated the Gulf of Mexico, with nearly 3.2 million barrels of oil leaking into the ocean [3]. The oil quickly spread throughout, with fully equipped NOAA boats summoned to assess the damage as the disaster was taking place. Stationary buoys were present in the area; however, as they cannot be moved, they cannot be used to assess the effects of the disaster in an area where no buoys are present. The Aqua Monitoring System would allow for quicker response to such events. As the AMS is much more affordable than boats made specifically for water quality monitoring purposes, more of them can be made and placed on boats in various locations. It will be significantly less expensive to send boats with the AMS to areas where a disaster has occurred or to place the AMS on boats which will travel to that area as a part of their normal route.
The AMS can also act to generally monitor water quality throughout large bodies of water. Data received from the AMS can be compared to that which nearby buoys send to make sure they are accurate. The AMS will also travel to locations with no buoy nearby, allowing for more data to be collected overall.
The most important purpose of the AMS would be research. Currently, in order to perform any type of research experiments, water quality scientist, oceanographers, and other researchers must either use data provided by government programs such as the NOAA; however, if the data they need is not available, the scientists need to assemble a device from scratch to use for collecting their own data. Scientists needing data outside of the sphere of data that governments are able to provide must do the unnecessary work of building their own device; this is a highly ineffective method of research, for it wastes both the time and the money of the scientists. Science is built upon the premise that scientists base their work off that of a fellow scientist. In this way, science is able to make steps forward without doing repetitive work. Having every scientist who is researching water quality assemble their own device is a wasteful use of the valuable time of scientists.
The AMS is an open-source solution to this problem. Private research companies, scientists, and governmental science organizations would be able to use the AMS in research projects worldwide. The AMS is equipped with the basic water sensors: temperature, turbidity, dissolved oxygen, etc. Scientists are able to use these common sensors, add their own sensors, and change the code for the existing sensors if necessary. Every research project is unique and requires a singular set of sensors; some scientists may even want to test their own, new sensor in the open ocean.
The versatility and adaptability of the Aqua Monitoring System make it a vital tool for water quality monitoring and research.