Florida tech students create device that could help Indian River Lagoon

BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) - Florida’s Indian River Lagoon is no stranger to eco problems. 

Everything from pollution to fish kills and unknown illnesses sickening other marine life. 

There are many researchers working to solve the lagoon’s issues and they may have just gotten a helping hand from four Melbourne college students.

The group recently entered a hack-a-thon called "Hack the IRL." 

Brevard County tech incubator Groundswell Startups brought together 100 techies. 

They had 36 hours to come up with their best idea to help monitor, clean up and raise awareness for the Indian River Lagoon.

A group of four Florida Institute of Technology students won “Hack the IRL” when they created SensiDock. 

The connected device is designed to attach to the end of peoples' docks on the lagoon. 

It aims to essentially crowd source a lot of the water data researchers need to solve some of the Indian River Lagoon's issues. 

It can measure things like pH levels, salinity and dissolved oxygen. 

The device uses a smartphone app to grab the data. 

Dock owners can monitor water quality and temperature around their property, and researchers get access to the data through cloud uploads.

SensiDock’s creators say the fully outfitted device will cost under $500, which they say is thousands less than scientific devices in use on the lagoon right now.

The device is just a prototype right now. 

Its creators are planning market research to measure how much interest there is for the device. 

After that, they plan to search for investors and hopefully help one of Central Florida’s most precious resources.

LINKS:

SensiDock - https://devpost.com/software/sensidock

Florida Institute of Technology - https://www.fit.edu

Groundswell Startups - https://swellstartups.com/

Space Coast Economic Development Commission - https://spacecoastedc.org/