Edge Collective

Projects | Research | Presentations | Guides | Journal

Edge Collective is a distributed research, teaching, and facilitation cooperative. We're working to help individuals and communities to adapt their vital food, water, energy, and communications infrastructure to challenging environments. All of the research, designs, and code that we produce are freely available online. We support our work through grants, donations, and via 'pay-if-or-as-you-can' arrangements.

If you'd like to learn more -- or would be interested to work on a project together -- please do reach out at collaborate (at) edgecollective (dot) io. Cheers!

Projects

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Biochar Water Filters

DIY techniques for filtering contaminants from drinking water, based on the designs by Aqueous Solutions and the work of Dr. Josh Kearns.

Updated: 2024-11-15

Greenhouse temperature monitoring

Developing DIY greenhouse temperature monitoring and control systems in collaboration with Smithereen Farm.

Updated: 2024-11-15

Water Storage Monitoring in New Mexico

Developing a satellite modem-based water level monitoring system in collaboration with Grass Nomads LLC and supported by the LOR Foundation.

Updated: 2024-11-15

Crate Carts for Small Farms

Developing an easy-to-assemble cart for transporting standard vegetable containers on small farms, in collaboration with the Young Farmer Network.

Updated: 2024-11-15

Bike Trailers

Developing an easy-to-assemble, low-cost bike trailer design, in collaboration with the Somerville Bike Kitchen.

Updated: 2024-11-15

Research Notebook

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Mobile Workshops and Living Spaces

Mobile structures (trailers, vans) as workshops, living spaces, more.

Updated: 2025-08-26

Notes on Ham Radio

Updated: 2025-01-16

Notes on wireless monitoring

Notes on wireless montioring (focused on LoRa).

Updated: 2024-11-15

Off-grid coordinated navigation

Low-power devices that can mutually geo-locate off-grid.

Updated: 2024-11-15

UV Spectrophotometry

Designing a DIY UV Spectrophotometer

Updated: 2024-11-15

Off-grid, low-carbon DIY transport & cargo

Designs for bike trailers, wheelbarrows, etc.

Updated: 2024-11-15

Notes on Pedagogy

Background, ideas, resources for teaching & engagement

Updated: 2024-11-15

Satellite + LoRa Depth Sensor

Remote temp and depth sensor transmitting over lora and satellite radio

Updated: 2024-11-15

Managing spring water

Designing a DIY UV Spectrophotometer

Updated: 2024-11-15

DIY small boat designs

Designs for small boats, focused on 'one-sheet' designs.

Updated: 2024-11-15

Signal / Waveform Analysis

Tools and techniques for signal / waveform analysis

Updated: 2024-11-15

Radio

General notes on radio design, builds

Updated: 2024-11-15

Off-grid power

Designs for off-grid power generation

Updated: 2024-11-15

DIY Paper making

Paper making

Updated: 2024-11-15

Radio Experiments

Notes on experiments with RNode / Signal / APRS

Updated: 2024-11-15

Old-fashioned mechanical devices

Collecting resources on non-fossil-fuel mechanical devices of yesteryear.

Updated: 2024-11-15

DIY Low Power Radio Nodes

Building radio nodes with an eye towards easy assembly and easy sourcing of parts.

Updated: 2024-11-15

Cold-weather growing structures

Building DIY, mobile hoop houses, high tunnels, and cold frames.

Updated: 2024-11-15

Off-grid heat

Designs for off-grid heating systems

Updated: 2024-11-15

Off-grid GPS

Off-grid gps navigation

Updated: 2024-11-15

Food self-provisioning

Designs and calculations around collective food self-provisioning

Updated: 2024-11-15

DIY Freezer Sensor

Developing freezer sensors for use in food storage

Updated: 2024-11-15

Water Flow Analysis

Techniques for measuring water flow

Updated: 2024-11-15

Misc Electronics Notes

General notes on electronics and related equipment

Updated: 2024-11-15

Crate Cart

Designing a DIY farm cart.

Updated: 2024-11-15

COVID-19 Testing

Notes on the accuracy of various approaches to COVID-19 testing.

Updated: 2024-11-15

COVID-19 Notes

Notes / papers / references regarding COVID-19 pandemic

Updated: 2024-11-15

Off-grid cooking

Designs for off-grid cooking

Updated: 2024-11-15

Cob Oven Construction

DIY cob oven building

Updated: 2024-11-15

DIY CO2 Monitoring

Notes on inexpensive CO2 monitoring options

Updated: 2024-11-15

Controlling Greenhouse Temperature at Smithereen Farm

Greenhouse monitoring and temp control at Smithereen Farm.

Updated: 2023-04-25

Monitoring Solar Pumps via Radio

Using local radio relay to monitor and control solar pumps

Updated: 2023-04-24

Sailboats and Sailfreight

Notes on wind-powered, water-based transport.

Updated: 2023-03-31

Field School Prototyping

Developing field school curricula.

Updated: 2023-03-06

Radio Telemetry for Hobby Rockets

Hobby rocketry radio telemetry -- perhaps useful for assessing radio tower height requirements.

Updated: 2022-12-19

Mapping tech

Notes on experiments with maps

Updated: 2021-11-07

Off-grid Welding

Off-grid (battery-powered) techniques for welding

Updated: 2021-10-11

Farm Cold Storage Monitoring

Notes on development of temperature monitors for cold storage on farms.

Updated: 2021-09-30

Gravity-powered Fans and Lights

Notes on designs for gravity-powered outdoor fans and lights

Updated: 2021-08-15

Open Air Schools

Ideas and history around convening school outdoors

Updated: 2021-08-12

DIY Outdoor Sanitation

Sanitation options to facilite outdoor gatherings during a pandemic

Updated: 2021-08-11

Outdoor Rain / Wind Shelter

Notes on DIY / tarp shelters for outdoor gatherings

Updated: 2021-07-27

DIY Air Purification Designs

Notes on the Corsi / Rosenthal / Comparetto DIY Air Purifier design -- build instructions, performance evaluation, references

Updated: 2021-07-27

DIY Air Purification Designs

Notes on the Corsi / Rosenthal / Comparetto DIY Air Purifier design -- build instructions, performance evaluation, references

Updated: 2021-07-27

Irrigation

Notes on technology and analysis related to soil irrigation

Updated: 2021-03-28

Flood / Tide Sensor

Flood / tide sensor prototyping

Updated: 2021-01-18

DIY load scale measurement

Load scale measurements using FOS software + hardware

Updated: 2020-12-23

Software Defined Radio (SDR) Experiments

Experiments in software defined radio.

Updated: 2020-12-05

Compressed air energy storage

Reserach into compressed air energy storage

Updated: 2020-11-25

Off-grid battery control

Omnivore design for a multi-purpose buck/boost battery system

Updated: 2020-11-19

Bluetooth experiments

Experiments with Bluetooth microcontrollers

Updated: 2020-11-15

E-Ink Map Display Prototyping

Setting up a (low power?) E-Ink display with a micro

Updated: 2020-11-08

Greenhouse Monitoring, 'Full Stack'

Instructions for End-to-End Greenhouse monitoring stack

Updated: 2020-11-02

P2P / DIY Server

P2P Farm server prototyping

Updated: 2020-10-20

Microcontroller HID input

Notes on setting up microcontrollers as HID devices

Updated: 2020-10-18

Podcasting Infrastructure

Notes on setting up podcasting infrastructure

Updated: 2020-10-17

Experiments with the Hyper Protocol

Updated: 2020-10-08

Vale da Lama Greenhouse Monitoring

Greenhouse monitoring electronics at Vale da Lama

Updated: 2020-10-06

DIY Conductivity Sensor

Notes on development of DIY conductivity sensors

Updated: 2020-10-01

Inexpensive Heltec WiFi + LoRa Gateway Setup

Notes on setting up a Heltec device.

Updated: 2020-09-24

Radiohead LoRa Mesh Field Test

Test of Radiohead mesh networking functionality.

Updated: 2020-09-14

Mothbot Prototyping

Prototyping the Mothbot -- an Arduino-compatible LoRa node for remote monitoring applications.

Updated: 2020-09-01

Meshtastic Test at Newfound Lake

Using the Meshtastic Python API to perform some basic range tests of the Meshtastic system at Newfound Lake in Bristol, NH.

Updated: 2020-08-30

Low Power experiments with SAMD21

Seeing what low current sleep modes are possible with various hardware designs.

Updated: 2020-08-29

Predicting Line-of-Sight Locations

Collecting tools for estimating line-of-sight locations based on topography.

Updated: 2020-08-27

Custom Location for Secure Scuttlebutt Data

How to set up a custom database directory location for Secure Scuttlebutt (SSB) (enabling e.g. storage of SSB on a portable drive).

Updated: 2020-08-26

Simple LoRa Mesh

Experiments with the Radiohead RHMesh approach.

Updated: 2020-08-22

Quahog Debug

Revising the Quahog ESP32 + LoRa circuit

Updated: 2020-08-21

LoRa Mesh Chat

Experimenting with the Meshtastic system for Android + Bluetooth + LoRa mesh networking.

Updated: 2020-08-03

Water Level Monitoring on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts (USA)

Radio + WiFi + Ultrasonic tide monitoring.

Updated: 2020-07-17

Greenhouse Monitoring at Wolfe's Neck Farm in Freeport, Maine (USA)

Setting up an "off-grid" greenhouse monitoring system.

Updated: 2020-04-13

Flood Sensing in New Orleans, Louisiana (USA)

Designing a flood alert and mapping system.

Updated: 2020-04-13

Soil and Greenhouse Monitoring at Quinta Vale da Lama in Odiáxere, Faro District (Portugal)

Prototyping a LoRa- and wifi-based system for Soil moisture and temperature, as well as ambient temperature humidty and soil temperture inside a greenhouse.

Updated: 2020-04-12

Soil Monitoring System in Olathe, Colorado (USA)

Developing a Free and Open Source LoRa-based system (software, hardware); prototyping a remote node for capturing relaying data from an SDI-12 - based soil moisture sensor.

Updated: 2020-03-21

Coastal Tide Monitoring in Belfast, Maine (USA)

(With Dave Sprague and friends in Belfast, ME -- water level via Radio + WiFi + pressure sensor.

Updated: 2020-02-17

Soil Monitoring System in Mead, Nebraska (USA)

Developing a system for capturing soil moisture measurements from a remote field site, using wifi, LoRa, and cellular communications.

Updated: 2019-07-24

Presentations

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UMass Amherst -- Ventilation & Filtration

UMass Amherst Physics STEM Seminar Nov 2, 2021-- building Corsi-Rosenthal boxes and learning about DIY ventilation assessment and

Updated: 2021-11-01

Belfast High PiE 2021-11-04

Presentation to Belfast High School 'Projects in Engineering' Class on 2021-11-04

Updated: 2021-10-25

Belfast -- Projects in Engineering

Presentation to Belfast High School 'Projects in Engineering' Class

Updated: 2021-10-25

Using Dat & Hyper in Agroecology

Video of talk 'Using Dat & the Hyper Stack in Agroecology', presented at the 2020 Dat Conference.

Updated: 2020-08-15

Design Patterns for Degrowth ICT

Video of talk 'Design Patterns for Degrowth ICT', presented at Degrowth Vienna 2020, as well as at SCORAI 2020.

Updated: 2020-06-09

Stewarding Technological Freedom in Agriculture

Video of talk presented at the LibrePlanet2020 conference by Mike Stenta, Jamie Gaehring, and Don Blair

Updated: 2020-04-14

Guides

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