EAGER: Sensors in a Shoebox: Engaging Detroiters in Analyzing and Meeting Community Needs

Abstract: The Sensors in a Shoebox project focuses on empowering urban citizens with the tools and methods necessary to observe and analyze the physical, social, and natural systems that affect their communities for improved community-based decision making. The project creates an affordable and ruggedized sensor kit that consists of solar-powered wireless sensors with Internet connectivity that can be distributed to communities to sense environmental parameters, vibrations, motion, among other parameters. Data is transmitted from community-deployed sensor kits to the cloud where sensor data is stored and managed. The community directly accesses their data from a web portal offering a suite of user-friendly analytical tools that citizens could use to extract community-relevant information from raw sensor data. Some envisioned community uses of the Sensors in a Shoebox platform include but not limited to: measuring neighborhood air quality, tracking the usage of public spaces, and observing residents' mobility choices (walking, biking, and motorized transport). This project will provide a scientific and technological foundation to the extension of cyber-physical systems to explicitly include humans. So called cyber-physical-social systems, these human-in-the-loop systems have the potential to transform a variety of commercial application including those in transportation, building energy management, among others. The project engages the communities of Detroit, a city beginning to go through transformation after decades of dramatic population declines. Specifically, the project recruits middle- and high school students from Detroit public charter schools to serve at the front lines of the system design and deployment. In doing so, the team will closely study and rigorously assess the experiences of urban youth using the system. In particular, advancement of STEM knowledge and youth's notions of being connected citizens will be qualitatively and quantitatively assessed.