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  • Author Author: tomaja
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In the Air Design Challenge - Pollen & Allergen Sensing

tomaja

Hi, everyone!

 

This is my first Element14 design challenge - and hopefully not the last one.

First, I have to say thanks to all the sponsors and Element14 for giving me the opportunity to take part in "In the Air" design challenge!

 

Since I'm a new guy here, allow me to introduce myself image

I am a software developer with a lifetime passion for electronics (I hope that this will be enough for me to come up with a sufficiently good design in February).

RC flying is my other passion that I discovered recently.

 

My plan for this challenge is to come up with a simple enough solution for allergen detection. I suffer from allergies caused by a couple of different allergens, pollen is one of them - so my choice for this challenge was natural. Sensing pollen will probably be the most difficult part of this project, since I have no experience with such sensors but I expect to learn a lot.

 

This is the initial design for Pollen and Allergen Sensing project:

image

I will first try to make all this work using evaluation boards and then try to make it compact by designing a single battery powered device connected to home wireless network.

 

Feel free to share your thoughts and observations.

 

Dragan

  • in reply to tomaja

    Dragan

    I have a slight asthma triggered by what we thought was just an allergy to dog and cat hair. It is a nuisance rather than a problem but is quite manageable.

     

    While we were building a new house, we moved house into a house the elderly in-laws had been in, there was a large collection of house dust accumulated behind various furniture.

    After the first night where I couldn't breathe, I attacked it with the vacuum cleaner and shifted furniture, cleaned down every horizontal surface and around the edge of the carpets with no head (ie just the pipe) on the vacuum cleaner.

     

    This allowed me to breath again.

     

    When we moved to our new house for the first couple of years we had no wall to wall carpet and didn't have an issue.

    After a couple of years with full carpet, the problems started affecting me and my daughter.

     

    This lead me to believe the issue lay in the carpet, and since vacuum cleaners loose their suck at the edge, the problems weren't being removed.

    Each (or sometimes second) vacuuming she cleans each horizontal surface to remove the dust, and vacuums the edges of the carpet with the head removed.

     

     

    While it might not be the entire cause, it tends to elevate the sensitivity, so that any background sources become triggers.

     

    I'm not sure if this helps you, or you already do something similar, but you may want to consider it.

    If you can reduce some of the triggers, then the other allergies/sensitivity may reduce.

     

    re the grass.

    The two others in the family take one of the commercially available medications. Some work, some don't so you might need to try different ones.

    I believe sunglasses or similar also help by reducing the contact with the eyes.

     

     

    Mark

  • in reply to mcb1

    Thanks

    What suggestions do you have? I'm always open to new ideas, especially if they could make my life easier and improve my health image.

    Commercial sensor that I found (made by Shinyei) are very limited in their use since they only detect Japanese Cedar and Cypress pollen, but that's something too. I found about that only after contacting manufacturer.

     

    BTW, I was tested for grass allergy too and the result was "highly sensitive" but not allergic image

     

    Dragan

  • in reply to tomaja

    This will be interesting.

    The dust mite thing, I have some suggestions, since it triggers my asthma, and luckily I don;t have the pollen.

     

    Some of my family have allergy to grass, which is not the best living out in the country surrounded by grass.

     

    Mark

  • in reply to DAB

    Unfortunately, I have the same problem (House Dust Mite and Ragweed pollen allergies). That's why I chose pollen and allergen detection for my project image

  • I will be watching your progress intently.

     

    My wife and I have a number of allergies and I am curious on how much you can detect.

     

    DAB