Your Duty as a Citizen Is to Do Science

For a wonderful, but brief, period from the 18th to the 20th century, there was an idea in the public consciousness that anyone with intelligence and a modest beaker budget could become a scientist. There were, after all, significant scientific breakthroughs occurring a prodigious rate and many of those were achieved by individuals lacking what we today would consider proper training and education. That was the era of the so-called “gentleman scientist.”

But it wasn’t long before progress slowed and became more incremental, with each step forward requiring a lot of work and a substantial budget. By the end of the 20th century, the idea of doing “real” science outside of a university, government, military, or corporate lab was almost laughable. What could an individual with limited equipment and an even more limited budget possibly achieve?

The answer, however, is surprising: quite a lot. And that all falls under the broad umbrella of citizen science.

Citizens become scientists

The term “citizen science” was coined in the 1990s independently by two different men: British sociologist Alan Irwin and American ornithologist Rick Bonney. Irwin and Bonney were expressing a sentiment that has grown dramatically in the first quarter of the 21st century, which is that everyday people can participate in science and that they have a right to help steer the course of science policy.

Less than 11 years ago, in June of 2014, the Oxford English Dictionary added “citizen science” and “citizen scientists” to its pages.

The term and the concept are new, but there have already been several notable examples of successful citizen science projects to enter the zeitgeist.

@Home

One of the first, longest-running, and the best-known is Folding@home, which is a distributed computing project designed to simulate protein folding. Such simulations require vast computational resources and Folding@home makes it possible for anyone to lend processor cycles to the task. The project launched in 2000 and gained widespread acclaim when a PlayStation 3 client became available in 2007, giving gamers the ability to chip in between matches.

SETI@home is a similar project that predates Folding@home by more than a year. It made use of distributed computing to analyze signals from space, such as radio telescopes, in the search for extraterrestrial life. Though in March of 2020, the need for volunteer-provided computational resources came to an end.

Both of those were, however, largely passive endeavors — participants weren’t mashing proteins like playdough or listening to deep space radio recordings with their own ears. But there are many examples of citizen science initiatives that are much more hands-on.

Crowdsourcing science

Eyewire, for instance, is an interactive digital game in which players reconstruct neuron branches. The resulting data is useful for artificial intelligence-based neuronal reconstruction and can also provide insight into our own human behaviors.

Data collection is a common hallmark of the large, well-organized citizen science projects. Zooniverse is a web portal created by the Citizen Science Alliance to provide access to several of those. The most famous is Galaxy Zoo, which crowdsources the classification of observed galaxies. Another, called Planet Hunters, gives people the ability to help identify extrasolar planets.

Of course, citizen science isn’t limited to those kinds of large-scale projects managed by official organizations. You, citizen, don’t need anyone’s permission to do science — you can start an experiment or do research right now, all on your own. You might even consider that to be your duty.

Citizen Science Month

April happens to be Citizen Science Month and that should inspire you.

Citizen Science Month is organized by the Association for Advancing Participatory Sciences (AAPS), which was formerly called the Citizen Science Association (not to be confused with the aforementioned Citizen Science Alliance, which still exists). This year’s theme is “One Million Acts of Science,” which is perfect for engaging the maker community.

The Power Hop Challenge

That’s why we partnered with Ribbit Network, Nordic Semiconductor, and PCBWay to bring you The Power Hop Challenge. It has great awards for the best projects related to climate change and it received submissions from several of the citizen scientists among Hackster’s membership.

PCBWay offers PCB fabrication and assembly services, plus several other services that are useful for this challenge and for makers in general. Those include 3D printing and CNC milling.

Nordic Semiconductor is one of the world's largest designers of ICs, including very popular SoC (system-on-chip) and SiP (system-in-package) options like the nRF family.

Both companies are sponsoring this challenge in support of Ribbit Network’s goal of building a global climate observation network based on open-source sensor platforms built by volunteers.

Ribbit Network knows that there is a massive overlap between makers and citizen scientists, so this partnership is ideal. The Power Hop Challenge asks participants to design a self-sustaining environmental sensor device, ready for others to build and deploy.

The current Frog Sensor is an adorable device built around the Adafruit ESP32-S3 Feather development board. It contains an Infineon DPS310 barometric pressure sensor, a Sensirion SCD30 CO2 sensor, and a GPS module. Those all fit into a cute enclosure with power coming in through the Feather’s USB-C port.

That design is nice and serves the goal of gathering climate data, but Ribbit Network wants something more robust and versatile. That’s where The Power Hop Challenge comes in. The design brief calls for a re-engineered compute board to replace the Feather and it should include Nordic’s nRF9151 SiP, cellular connectivity, a battery input, and a solar panel input.

The final solutions for this challenge are due on April 25th and the winners will be announced on May 9th, so stay tuned for the exciting reveal.

Anyone can science

But if you take anything away from this article, let it be the confidence to engage in the scientific method. You don’t need a lab with expensive equipment or even an advanced degree. You just need a solid understanding of scientific principles, a question in need of an answer, and a well-designed experiment or clear research goals.

If that happens to include some custom hardware, then you know where to post the build log!