$1.25M project merges tech, community design for Hawaiʻi hazard monitoring

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Link to video and sound (details below): https://spaces.hightail.com/receive/BWcsWtO1EB

***SUGGESTED VOSOT SCRIPT BELOW***

To better protect Hawaiʻi's people and ecosystems from threats, such as wildfires, drought, flooding, hurricanes, tsunamis, water contamination and more, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and Georgia Tech researchers have secured a $1.25 million grant from the National Science Foundation to build faster, cheaper, locally made sensors that deliver potentially life-saving data in real-time.

The funding will support the development of low-cost sensors that can be printed in minutes and deployed the same day to collect actionable data for communities and organizations across the state. These sensors could measure water quality or soil contamination signals, and then connect to an AI-enabled handheld device smaller than a cell phone, that processes and transmits data to the web in real-time. Users could then view and interpret the data via a publicly available dashboard.

Community kuleana

To ensure its success, the technology will be co-designed with groups who have kuleana (responsibility) for communities, land and water across Hawaiʻi, including land stewardship organizations, Hawaiian-language immersion schools and community colleges. These ʻāina (land) stewards, kūpuna (elders), residents and kumu (teachers and educators) will guide priorities, experiment with prototypes and define success criteria.

"We can shorten the path from idea to instrument and build sensors tuned to local priorities without relying on centralized, hard-to-access facilities," said principal investigator and UH Mānoa College of Engineering Associate Professor Tyler Ray. "Our goal is a design-to-deployment pathway that works on-island: robust, affordable and replicable."

The team is developing the sensors to pair with a small, durable edge device that can harvest and store energy, run machine learning models and work even with limited network connectivity. An open library of circuits and firmware will let partners quickly customize sensors for measuring targets from pH and turbidity to heavy metals and contaminants.

"This grant recognizes that Hawaiʻi is a key leader in the proper design of disaster and hazard response cyberinfrastructure," said Josiah Hester, a Kanaka ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiian) and associate professor of computing at Georgia Tech. "Deploying AI devices in austere environments, making AI interpretable and understandable, and providing these capabilities to everyone are key goals we will achieve. As a Native Hawaiian scientist and technologist, it is my own kuleana to translate these technologies that support stewardship, and we as a team are excited to see this work support our communities."

Building on community ties

The project grows from existing relationships across Oʻahu, Maui and Kauaʻi, including Hawaiian-language immersion schools and stewardship organizations, where residents, educators and resource stewards will guide priorities. The team will convene iterative design workshops, peer exchanges between partner sites on Oʻahu and Maui, and a capstone gathering to synthesize findings and share open designs. Data governance will follow established frameworks to support local control and appropriate confidentiality for sensitive results.

"Our approach follows advances in community-centered co-design where we will design the sensing agenda together with community partners," added co-principal investigator Aurora Kagawa-Viviani, assistant professor in UH Mānoa's Water Resources Research Center and Department of Geography and Environment in the College of Social Sciences. "Building strong and equitable relationships ensures the technology and the data it produces have lasting value long after the prototype. Our design process considers who maintains it, how the data are stewarded, interpreted and made useful for community decision-making."

The grant will support hands-on training that connects students across K-12, community colleges and research universities with partner sites. The team's open hardware, software and design artifacts will be released for others to adapt in island, rural and urban settings facing similar hazards.

Link to video and sound (details below): https://spaces.hightail.com/receive/BWcsWtO1EB

VIDEO:

BROLL: 1:33

Shots of Tyler Ray and Kendall Lorenzo working on a 3D printer to print sensors

Also suggest using video of environmental threats to the islands

SOUNDBITES:

Tyler Ray, ​​UH Mānoa College of Engineering Associate Professor and principal investigator

(:15)

"So what our technology allows is we can use additive manufacturing-3D printing-to create very specific customized devices for the communities motivated by community needs."

Aurora Kagawa-Viviani, assistant professor in UH Mānoa's Water Resources Research Center and Department of Geography and Environment in the College of Social Sciences, and co-principal investigator

(:17)

"Do a real needs assessment through community workshops to identify the range of those factors. And then with communities and students from an area as co-participants, as co-designers, we can develop custom sensors."

VOSOT SCRIPT:

INTRO:

Researchers at UH Mānoa are taking new steps to help Hawaiʻi prepare for disasters.

VO:

UH Mānoa recently received a $1.25 million National Science Foundation grant to build fast, low-cost sensors that track things like water quality and soil contamination.

These sensors can be printed in minutes and deployed the same day.

They send real-time data to a small handheld device.

And communities can view the results on a dashboard.

The team is building the technology side-by-side with local partners to ensure the sensors meet community needs.

SOT:

Tyler Ray, ​​UH Mānoa College of Engineering Associate Professor and principal investigator

"So what our technology allows is we can use additive manufacturing-3D printing-to create very specific customized devices for the communities motivated by community needs."

Aurora Kagawa-Viviani, assistant professor in UH Mānoa's Water Resources Research Center and Department of Geography and Environment, and co-principal investigator

"Do a real needs assessment through community workshops to identify the range of those factors. And then with communities and students from an area as co-participants, as co-designers, we can develop custom sensors."

VO:

The goal is to move Hawaiʻi's hazard monitoring forward and give communities quicker, smarter ways to protect people and ʻāina.