Data can help us better understand the physical world around us. Knowing how pollen distribute throughout a city can help reduce allergic reactions, and analyzing a cow's behavior could predict when it's getting sick. But gathering this data used to be difficult: building sensor devices was hard, required an electric engineering degree, and was expensive. And connectivity was a problem, Wi-Fi has too short of a range, and cellular is expensive and power hungry. But that is changing!

With new technology everyone can create battery-powered sensor nodes in just a few hours, and also create an open, decentralized and crowdsourced network with kilometers of range. In this workshop, guided by Jan Jongboom (Arm) and Johan Stokking (The Things Network), you'll build a system for dust particle monitoring, which you can then deploy in your city.

Hardware for this workshop (Multi-Tech xDot, sensors, batteries) will be provided by us, but please bring your own laptop (Windows, MacOS or Linux)!

[Programming descriptions are generated by participants and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of SXSW.]