Intellectual Property Considerations

We are grateful to the landscape architecture department for providing us access to their lab and letting us use their resources for testing of the project. We have acknowledged all use of code and have abided by all copyright statements on both code and hardware. We have given credit to all hardware devices that were used in this project, as well as the code that was referenced in our final program.

Ethical Considerations

In Accordance with the IEEE code of ethics, we considered our design choices carefully and we held ourselves to high ethical standards which included working to not only ensure our project met all quality technical standards, but also holding ourselves to a professional working standard. Our device was made by ensuring that nobody will be harmed during use. Our project is absent of any potential unsafe factors which intentionally endanger the public or environment. We made no claims that the device can do something it cannot, nor is something that it is not. As we have open sourced our designs, we have minimized any potential conflicts of interest and false claims about the technology used. We hope that our documentation can help others better understand the technology behind microcontroller design, and we welcome any honest criticism and feedback readers may have upon us. By designing this responsive floodplain system we intend to make an interactive system which would help the river side communities to be more integrated with the ecology as well as the biological conditions of the river. As such, we've strove to make as great an impact on this need as possible given the time constraints and available resources.

Legal Considerations

Our project includes Raspberry Pi models which that have undergone extensive compliance testing, and meet the following European standards:
Electromagnetic Compatibility Directive (EMC) 2014/30/EU
Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive 2011/65/EU
Raspberry Pi module uses the Bluetooth specification v2.0+EDR protocol which operates on a 2.4GHz ISM band, and has an emission power of <=-84dBm. Pulse transmissions for the Ultrasonic sensors HC-SR04 were brief and in the inaudible 40KHz frequency. Use of the sensor sculpture chassis and lab equipment was fully authorized, with prior permission from the lab staff. These components and respective specifications adhere to FCC standard restrictions and thus our design is capable of operating legally in the US.

Acknowledgements

We would like to give a special thanks to our professor Joe Skovira for all the recommendations, support and guidance that he provided to us throughout our work on this project. Prof. Skovira was of immense help in getting this project completed and first of all connecting us to the Landscape Architecture Department for getting it started. We would also like to thank him for building a great course and labs which we thoroughly enjoyed throughtout the semester. Also, we would like to thank Kari Spiegelhalter for the continuous support and helping us build the physical structure of the sensor system. Also thanks to all the TAs who have helped us all the way through the semester.

Parts List