Victoria engineering students use technology to clean up the environment
18 Jul 2013 - 11:46:26 in Research
A smartphone app and website which the public could use to report livestock polluting waterways, rubbish dumping and overflows from outfall pipes have been developed by students at Victoria University’s School of Engineering and Computer Science. The innovations are part of the River Watch project, carried out by a group of third-year engineering students, supervised by Professor Winston Seah.
The students have also been testing unmanned flying vehicles equipped with GPS technology to record incidents of pollution in New Zealand rivers, particularly those involving livestock. The smartphone app would allow people to upload photographs and automatically generated GPS coordinates of incidents they observed which, once verified, would be made publicly available online.
The students will speak about their work to improve environmental monitoring at a launch event on Wednesday 31 July at Victoria University.
River Watch began as part of a third-year engineering module where students apply their project management skills in a group project. The work continued as a summer research project supported by the Waterway Action Initiative New Zealand (WaiNZ).
River Watch project launch:
Date and time: Wednesday 31 July, 10am.
Venue: Hunter Council Chamber, Gate 2, Kelburn Campus, Victoria University.
If you would like to attend, please RSVP by Monday 29 July 2013 to Suzan Hall, School Manager, School of Engineering and Computer Science at Victoria University: suzan.hall@ecs.vuw.ac.nz.
For more information on the River Watch project, contact Professor Winston Seah, telephone 04-463 5233 ext 8493 or email winston.seah@vuw.ac.nz.
To watch a TV3 news report on the River Watch project, click on the link below:
http://www.3news.co.nz/Unmanned-aerial-vehicle-monitors-river-pollution/tabid/1160/articleID/309479/Default.aspx
To read a Dominion Post article about the River Watch project, click on the link below:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/8931825/Drones-join-effort-to-track-river-pollution