Project
Seismon
Earthquakes are pretty common in California, and while schools have earthquake drills, most classrooms aren’t really equipped to handle the chaos of a real quake. There’s no local detection, and the whole class depends on the teacher to give instructions, which could easily turn into a mess—especially in elementary classrooms.
That’s where Seismon comes in. It’s a robot-like device I designed to detect and classify earthquakes in real time, give out emergency instructions even if there’s no teacher present, and make sure those instructions are followed until the teacher confirms everyone’s safe. Plus, it’s got a drill mode to practice all of this ahead of time.
I built Seismon from scratch. I designed its case in TinkerCad, making it look like a friendly robot, and got it 3D printed—no second chances, so it had to be perfect on the first try. I soldered all the components by hand and programmed it using an Arduino microcontroller. The brain of Seismon is an MPU6050 sensor, a 6-axis digital accelerometer that calculates a Peak Ground Acceleration (PGA) value. This PGA value is matched to a government-approved intensity scale to predict potential damage. When a quake is detected, Seismon uses speakers and LEDs to give clear, government-approved safety instructions. It even has a passive infrared sensor to track movement in the classroom and repeat the instructions until the teacher confirms it’s safe.
To make sure it worked, I came up with a testing procedure using a mechanical spring system that mimics earthquake waves. Seismon passed with flying colors—95% of the tests were spot on, with a maximum deviation of just 0.05 m/s².
The best part? Seismon is affordable and easy to scale, making it a practical solution to help classrooms handle earthquakes better and stay safe.
Seismon was featured as "Top 10 Creative Projects From Arduino Day Community Challenge", and was featured in the i-programmer.info blog. Seismon was created to enter in the Synopsys Competition, where it won Santa Clara Valley Science and Engineering Fair Second Place, and the 1st Place Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers - San Jose Branch.
You can read more about Seismon here: https://lnkd.in/dKFuZ2Yi
https://lnkd.in/dDYcWEz4
