As the world is getting smarter with connected devices, you can now transform your Raspberry Pi into a full-fledged seismograph and detect vibrations — even earthquakes and tremors. The new device is currently available through a crowd-funding campaign on Kickstarter.
Called Raspberry Shake, the new DIY board works as a sensor-digitizer to record vibrations from around a couple of magnitudes within a radius of 50 miles. It can also record tremors of larger magnitudes. However, the device is not designed to be an alternative to some more expensive seismographs that can track various earthquake subtleties.
“Raspberry Shake can detect and record short period (0.5 – 15 Hz) earthquakes; the farther away an earthquake, the less of that range of frequencies can be recorded,” reads the description on the Kickstarter page.
Raspberry Shake includes two major components, including a geophone and a board with an amplifier, digitiser and ARM processor. The geophone on the PCB board tracks vibrations of the earth, no matters whether they are occurring through a moving truck or some natural tremors. The group of the amplifier, digitizer and ARM processor, on the other hand, helps the device to amplify and digitised data that later on shipped to the processor and bundled into one-second packets.
The data recorded through Raspberry Shake comes to your monitor through open source SWARM, which is written for the USGS Alaska Volcano Observatory. The software is available for free download.
Moreover, you can attach the Raspberry Shake shield with any of your Raspberry Pi B, B+, 2B and 3 to see action on your screen. There are three signal connections as well as the power and ground pins.
The Kickstarter project for the new Raspberry accessory has already exceeded its target funding goal and reached the mark of over $90,000. You just need to pay the pledge amount of $99 to own the shield that would be shipped starting November.
